BV  2063  .J67  1913 

Jordan,  William  George,  185^ 

-1939. 
The  song  and  the  soil 


THE   SHORT   COURSE   SERIES 


THE    SONG   AND   THE    SOIL 


GENERAL   PREFACE 


The  title  of  the  present  series  is  a  sufficient 
indication  of  its  purpose.  Few  preachers, 
or  congregations,  will  face  the  long  courses 
of  expository  lectures  which  characterised 
the  preaching  of  the  past,  but  there  is  a 
growing  conviction  on  the  part  of  some 
that  an  occasional  short  course,  of  six  or 
eight  connected  studies  on  one  definite 
theme,  is  a  necessity  of  their  mental  and 
ministerial  life.  It  is  at  this  point  the  pro- 
jected series  would  strike  in.  It  would 
suggest  to  those  who  are  mapping  out  a 
scheme  of  work  for  the  future  a  variety  of 
subjects  which  might  possibly  be  utilised  in 
this  way. 

The  appeal,  however,  will  not  be  restricted 

to    ministers    or    preachers.      The    various 

volumes  will  meet  the  needs  of  laymen  and 

Sunday  School  teachers  who  are  interested 

ii 


General  Preface 

in  a  scholarly  but  also  practical  exposition 
of  Bible  history  and  doctrine.  In  the  hands 
of  office-bearers  and  mission-workers  the 
"  Short  Course  Series  **  may  easily  become 
one  of  the  most  convenient  and  valuable 
of  Bible  helps. 

It  need  scarcely  be  added  that  while  an 
effort  has  been  made  to  secure,  as  far  as 
possible,  a  general  uniformity  in  the  scope 
and  character  of  the  series,  the  final  re- 
sponsibility for  the  special  interpretations 
and  opinions  introduced  into  the  separate 
volumes,  rests  entirely  with  the  individual 
contributors. 

A  detailed  list  of  the  authors  and  their 
subjects  will  be  found  at  the  close  of  each 
volume. 


Ill 


Volumes  already  Published 

A  Cry  for  Justice:  A  Study  in  Amos. 

By  Prof.  John  E.  McFadyen,  D.D. 

The  Beatitudes. 

By  Rev.  Robert  H.  Fisher,  D.D. 

The  Lenten  Psalms. 
By  the  Editor. 

The  Psalm  of  Psalms. 

By  Prof.  James  Stalker,  D.D. 

The  Song  and  the  Soil. 

By  Prof.  W.  G.  Jordan,  D.D. 

The  Higher  Powers  of  the  Soul. 

By  Rev.  George  M'Hardy,  D.D. 


Price  6o  cents  net  per  Volume 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Ubc  SDort  Course  Series 

EDITED   BY 

Rev.  JOHN  ADAMS,  B.D. 


SEP  25  1914 


THE 

SONG  AND  THE  SOIL 

Or,  the    missionary    IDEA 
IN    THE    OLD    TESTAMENT 


BY 


W.   G.  JORDAN,   B.A.,   D.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  HEBREW  IN  QUEEN'S  UNIVERSITY,  AND 
PROFESSOR  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  CRITICISM  AND  EXEGESIS 
IN  queen's  THEOLOGICAL  COLLEGE,   KINGSTON,  CANADA 

AUTHOR  OF 
"biblical   criticism    AND    MODERN    THOUGHT** 

"prophetic   ideas   and    ideals"   etc   etc. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1913 


TABLE   OF    CONTENTS 


I.  The    Song    and    the    Soil    (Psalm 

cxxxvii.)        ....         I 

II.  The  Attractive  Power  of  True 
Religion  (Isaiah  ii.  2-4;  Micah 
iv.  1-4)         .  .  .  .18 

III.  The  Missionary  Servant  (Isaiah  xlii. 

1-4)  .  .  .  .38 

IV.  The    Universal    House    of   Prayer 

(Isaiah  Ivi.  6,  7)        .  .  •      5^ 

V.  The  City  of  the  Ever-Open   Door 

(Isaiah  Ix.  11,  12)     .  .  .       72 

VI.  The  Kingdom  that  Survives  the 
Shaking  of  the  World  (Haggai 
ii.  6-8;  Hebrews  xii.  26,  27)  .89 

VII.  The  City  Without  a  Wall  (Zechariah 

ii.  1-5)         .  .  .  .104 

VIII.  The  Final  Festival  (Isaiah  xxv.  6-8)  .     119 


Vll 


*•  By  the  missionary  thought  in  the  Old  Testament  is  to 
be  understood  the  faith  that  in  the  future  the  whole 
earth  will  come  to  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah's  glory 
and  all  peoples  pray  unto  Him.  The  missionary  thought 
lies  altogether  at  the  circumference  not  in  the  centre  of 
the  Old  Testament.  It  has  definite  prophetic  thoughts 
as  its  presupposition  and  reaches  its  highest  point  at  a 
time  when  the  prophetic  movement  lies  already  in  the 
past ;  but  the  opposition  in  which  it  stands  to  the 
particularism  of  the  Law  and  the  Jewish  abhorrence 
of  all  things  heathenish  never  allowed  it  to  reach  a 
practical  significance."  Professor  Max  Lohr. 


Vlll 


I. 

THE  SONG  AND  THE  SOIL. 

Psalm  CXXXVII. 

This  cry  "  How  can  we  sing  the  Lord*s 
song  in  a  strange  land  ? "  came  from  the 
deep  places  of  the  human  soul ;  it  was 
wrung  out  of  the  hearts  of  men  who  were 
in  great  pain  ;  it  comes  as  an  apology  for 
solemn  silence  and  tells  the  story  of  a  lost 
song.  In  an  exposition  our  first  duty  is  to 
revert  to  the  original  and  restore  to  the  text 
the  personal  name  of  Israel's  God.  "  How 
can  we  sing  Jehovah's  song  in  a  foreign 
land  ?  **  Why  is  this  necessary  ?  Because, 
on  account  of  the  present  translation,  the 
question  loses  its  keen  edge  ;  the  historical 
reference  so  necessary  to  a  true  understand- 
ing of  this  particular  passage  is  largely 
hidden.     To  us,  "  Lord  "  means  the  eternal 

A  I 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

and  ever  present  God,  the  ruler  of  the 
universe  in  the  fullest  sense.  The  song  of 
this  God  can  be  sung  in  any  land  and  at  all 
times  ;  it  is  now  a  question  of  religion  in 
the  personal  sense  and  not  of  geography,  a 
matter  of  the  spirit  and  not  of  the  soil. 

«<  Where'er  they  seek  Thee  Thou  art  found 
And  every  place  is  hallowed  ground."  i 

These  beautiful  words  are  commonplace  to 
us,  that  is  they  express  a  theory  of  God  and 
worship  that  we  have  come  to  regard  as 
self-evident.  But  that  only  shows  that  one 
of  our  religious  needs  is  a  quickening  of  the 
historical  imagination,  so  that  we  may  realise 
how  much  toil  of  brain  and  pain  of  heart  the 
saints  in  the  past  have  had  to  endure  that  this 
great  inheritance  might  be  ours.  This  is  a 
much  larger  question  than  it  seems  to  be  when 
we  are  looking  merely  on  the  surface  ;  it  is 
not  simply  that  a  few  obscure  people  by  the 
rivers  of  Babylon  find  that  tearful  silence, 
not  joyful  song,  suits  the  mood  of  that 
particular   hour.       When    we   translate   the 

^  Cowper. 
2 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

pathetic  cry  into  the  larger  language  for 
which  it  craves  it  means  :  Can  our  religion 
take  root  in  this  foreign  soil  ;  can  we  truly 
worship  the  God  of  Israel  in  this  strange 
land  that  is  under  the  sway  of  arrogant 
magnificent  idols  ?  Thus  stated,  the  ques- 
tion is  seen  to  be  of  more  than  personal  or 
parochial  significance.  Already  there  comes 
to  us  a  suggestion  that  we  have  a  concern  in 
it ;  that  these  men  are  wrestling  with  a 
problem  that  relates  to  the  life  of  humanity. 

I.  The  Commonplaces  of  Life. 

One  keen  critic  has  made  the  remark  that 
the  Psalter  is,  on  the  whole,  a  commonplace 
book.^  We,  because  of  our  intense  rever- 
ence for  this  noble  collection  of  sacred  songs, 
are  apt  to  resent  the  statement  as  manifesting 
a  cold,  cynical  spirit  of  criticism.  But,  rightly 
taken,  taken  no  doubt  in  the  spirit  in  which 
it  was  meant,  there  is  a  fine  suggestiveness 
in  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  greatness  of 
the  Psalter  consists  rather  in  its  spiritual 
1  Duhm. 

3 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

quality  than  in  its  literary  character.  It 
contains,  even  from  this  point  of  view,  great 
poems  :  the  twenty-third,  forty-second,  fifty- 
first,  seventy-third,  and  many  more  with  their 
plaintive  confession  of  sin  and  piercing  cries 
for  help.  Some  of  the  Pilgrim  Psalms  are 
real  gems,  remarkable  for  their  many-sided 
beauty,  a  beauty  that  shines  the  more  clearly 
because  the  light  is  condensed  into  small 
space.  The  less  passionate  hymns  and  the 
calm  reviews  of  history  have  a  fine,  liturgical 
quality.  All  this  is  true,  but  it  is  also  true  that 
if  in  the  Old  Testament  we  would  seek  the 
grand  style,  glorious  rhetoric,  gorgeous  im- 
agery, organ-like  music,  passionate  poetry,  we 
must  turn  to  Job  and  Isaiah  rather  than  to  the 
Psalter.  But  the  common  is  not  necessarily  the 
commonplace  in  a  poor  sense.  Many  of  the 
psalms  deal  in  simple  language,  in  plain,  poetic 
parallelism,  with  the  daily  joys  and  sorrows, 
the  common  hopes  and  fears,  of  struggling 
men.     While  we  find  in  the  New  Testament  ^ 

^  Job   V.   13;    I   Cor.  iii.    19.     Of  course  there  are 
many   general  similarities  of  thought  and  expression,  as 
Job  iv.  8  J  Gal.  vi.  7,  8,  etc. 
4 


The   Song  and  the  Soil 

one  clear  quotation  from  the  great  dramatic 
poem  that  wrestles  so  fiercely  with  the 
problem  of  suffering,  the  writings  of  evan- 
gelists and  apostles  are  saturated  with  the 
thoughts  and  language  of  this  great  book 
of  praise.  A  book  that  has  so  mightily 
influenced  the  public  worship  and  private 
devotion  of  Judaism  and  Christendom  does 
not  depend  for  its  reputation  or  its  power 
upon  our  literary  appreciation  ;  fearless 
criticism  cannot  harm  it  but  may  help 
us  to  come  nearer  to  its  heart ;  of  it,  as 
a  whole,  we  may  say  that  it  lifts  our  com- 
mon affections  and  needs  into  the  light 
of  that  divine  presence  from  which  there 
streams  the  healing  rays  of  mercy  and 
forgiveness. 

Another  careful  scholar^  has  said  that, 
after  the  period  of  silence,  when  the  harp 
was  taken  down  from  the  willow,  the  first 
note  was  a  discord.  We  all  know  what  that 
means.  We  have  read  the  psalm  in  a  spirit 
of  sympathy,  we  have  been  deeply  moved  by 
its  pathetic  cry,  and  then,  as  we  come  to  the 
^  Baethgen. 

s 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

close,  we  shivered  as  this  jarring  note  struck 
our  souls — 

"O  daughter  of  Babylon,  that  art  to  be  destroyed; 
Happy  shall  he  be,  that  rewardeth  thee 

As  thou  hast  served  us. 
Happy  shall  he  be,  that  taketh  and  dasheth  thy  little 

ones  against  the  rock." 

It  is  not  that  we  do  not  ourselves  cry  to 
Heaven  against  cruel  oppression  ;  it  is  not 
that  we  do  not  feel  bitter  resentment  against 
wrong ;  it  is  not  that  we  ourselves  have 
grown  quite  out  of  sympathy  with  natural 
revenge.  That  which  causes  the  shock  is 
that  we  realise  so  keenly,  especially  when 
the  words  are  read  in  the  calmness  of  the 
sanctuary,  the  sharp  contrast  with  the 
Christian  ideal.  We  think  at  the  same  time 
of  Him  Who,  on  the  cross,  prayed  for  His 
enemies,  and  we  acknowledge  that  vengeance 
belongeth  unto  the  Lord. 

In  music  and  in  life  the  discord  has  its 
uses,  and  here  it  reminds  us  that  the  poem 
is  not  a  mere  literary  creation,  that  it  is  the 
expression  of  real  passion,  suffused  with 
agonised  feeling,  stained  with  blood  and 
6 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

tears.  War  must  always  be  a  cruel  thing  ; 
if  ever  a  necessity,  then  a  hateful  necessity. 
The  feature  of  it  suggested  here,  that  the 
lives  of  the  weak  and  innocent  were  with 
ruthless  cruelty  sacrificed  in  cold  blood, 
belongs  to  the  conduct  of  war  in  ancient 
times  as  well  as  in  days  not  so  very  remote 
from  our  own.  The  Hebrew  patriot  invoked 
against  his  powerful  foe  "  the  law  of  like  *'  ; 
he  prayed  that  the  horrors  that  had  come 
upon  his  country  and  his  friends  might,  in 
God's  providence,  fall  upon  the  proud  enemy. 
Now  it  is  our  duty  as  Christian  disciples  to 
purge  our  hearts  from  hatred,  and  leave 
vengeance  to  public  justice  and  to  the  God 
of  heaven.  But  we  are  not  called  to  judge 
severely  those  who  stand  at  an  earlier  stage 
and  who  express  the  elemental  passions  in  a 
less  disciplined  form.  The  varied  moods  of 
men  represented  in  our  Bible  are  interesting 
and  instructive  to  us,  but  they  do  not  express 
an  absolute  infallible  standard  ;  it  is  when 
we  see  the  great  differences  in  tone  and 
temper  at  different  periods  of  the  history 
that  we  understand  the  phrase  "  progressive 
7 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

revelation"  not  as  a  mere  dogma,  but  as  a 
fact  of  life. 


2.  The  Exile. 

The  exile,  so  fateful  in  the  history  of  the 
Hebrew  people  and  their  religion,  and 
through  it  in  the  life  of  humanity,  was,  in 
a  sense,  only  one  of  the  cruel  incidents  of 
ancient  warfare.  The  Israelites  of  the 
Northern  kingdom  had,  in  the  eighth  cen- 
tury B.C.,  suffered  a  similar  experience. 
After  the  fall  of  Samaria,  many  of  them  had 
been  deported  and  settled  in  various  regions 
of  the  Assyrian  empire  ;  they  were  "  lost " 
in  that  they  were  scattered  and  had  not 
attained  to  sufficient  distinctness  of  religious 
character  to  maintain  their  separate  life. 
The  Jews  who  were  carried  away  to  Babylon 
before  and  at  the  time  of  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  were  able  to  form  colonies  in  the 
new  land,  and  had,  through  the  teaching  of 
the  prophets  and  the  discipline  of  the  Law, 
already  achieved  a  more  definite  character. 
The  temple  was  destroyed,  the  land  was  laid 
8 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

desolate,  but  the  religion  could  not  be 
killed.  The  broken-hearted  patriots  faced 
the  question  that  is  raised  in  the  text,  "  Can 
the  religion  live  in  the  new  conditions,  apart 
from  the  land  that  was  its  original  home  and 
without  the  temple  that  was  the  scene  and 
centre  of  its  worship  ?  '*  At  the  time  it 
might  seem,  to  the  superficial  observer,  to 
concern  merely  the  fate  of  a  small,  obscure 
sect ;  seen  in  the  larger  light  of  history  it 
is  a  problem  of  the  widest  human  interest. 
These  people,  in  different  groups,  had  been 
driven  across  the  dreary  desert  to  a  foreign 
land,  a  land,  in  most  respects,  opposite  in 
character  to  their  own.  Palestine  was  a 
small  land,  a  land  of  hills  and  dales,  a  land 
that  with  its  simple  beauty  and  historic 
associations  took  a  firm  grip  of  the  patriotic 
heart.  Babylon  was  a  great  land,  wonderful 
in  its  own  way,  spacious  and  splendid,  but 
much  more  of  a  man-made  land,  with  its 
artificial  irrigation  and  its  marvellous  build- 
ings. There  was  something  overpowering 
in  the  vastness  of  this  empire,  in  its  popula- 
tion, its  political  organisation,  and  military 
9 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

equipment.  Here  was  religion  bewildering 
in  its  variety  and  magnificence,  with  many 
gods,  immense  temples,  highly  -  trained 
priests  and  scribes  ;  in  fact,  the  Jews,  bereft 
of  their  own  national  sanctuary,  were  sud- 
denly flung  face  to  face  with  a  mighty 
empire  and  a  great  religion,  both  resting  on 
centuries  of  ancient  civilisation  and  culture. 

Little  wonder  that  the  question  was  both 
persistent  and  oppressive,  "  How  can  we 
sing  Jehovah's  song  in  a  foreign  land  ;  in  a 
land  that  belongs  to  other  gods  and  where 
our  religion,  so  beautiful  in  its  own  home, 
seems  to  be  an  alien,  helpless  thing  ?  "  The 
magnificent  declaration  of  "  Deutero-Isaiah," 
that  these  great  empires  crumble  to  pieces 
while  the  word  of  Israel's  God  abides  for  ever 
was  the  utterance  of  a  triumphant  faith.^  Our 
psalm,  on  the  other  hand,  brings  to  us  the 
restless  fear  and  tormenting  anxiety  of  the 
doubt  and  despondency  that  consumed  the 
strength  of  the  common  man. 

And  yet  enlargement  came  through  afflic- 
tion.    Out  of  this  crisis  arose  a  new  church, 

1  Isa.  xl.  8. 
lO 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

not  absolutely  new,  for  no  great  thing  is  a 
mere  novelty.  The  living  truth  or  the 
institution  that  meets  new  needs  is  always 
true  to  the  great  past.  The  exile  does  mark 
a  new  epoch  but  it  is  not  an  absolute  begin- 
ning. It  threw  the  true  believers  more  com- 
pletely on  those  things  of  the  past  that  could 
be  preserved  and  revivified  ;  they  learned  to 
understand  their  own  literature  and  life. 

The  Jew  became  a  student ;  in  a  more 
special  way,  the  book  and  the  regular  meeting 
for  fellowship  took  the  place  of  the  elaborate 
ritual  and  the  sanctity  of  the  temple.  Thus 
he  prepared  the  way  for  a  simple  worship 
that  could  be  carried  into  all  lands.  He 
became  also  a  missionary  because,  wherever 
he  went,  he  must  carry  his  religion  with  him, 
and  as  it  was,  in  so  many  respects,  a  noble 
religion,  it  made  its  appeal  to  receptive  souls. 
In  many  ways  then,  here  was  a  severance 
from  merely  local  elements  and  an  emergence 
of  universal  features.  Jerusalem  must  remain 
the  centre  of  the  religion  and  the  ideal  city 
of  God  ;  the  songs  must  still  be  "  songs  of 
Zion,"  but  they  gained  a  more  than  national 
1 1 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

quality ;  spiritual  feeling  tended  to  break 
down  sectarian  barriers.  So  when  we  throw 
the  light  of  history  upon  this  question,  our 
sympathy  for  the  perplexed  patriots  is  kindled 
as  we  remember  that  in  the  confusion  of 
their  disappointment  they  could  not  see  the 
full  scope  of  their  own  inquiry  and  the  large- 
ness of  God's  answer. 

Another  gain  was  revelation  through 
experience.  How  do  men  learn  such  a 
great  truth  as  this,  a  truth  so  alien  to  crude, 
primitive  thought,  that  the  true  sacrifice  is 
the  broken  heart  and  contrite  spirit  ?  ^  Not 
by  dictation  from  prophet  or  priest,  nor  even 
by  verbal  statement  from  heaven,  but  by 
actual  experience,  sanctified  by  the  guidance 
of  God's  spirit.  We  have  to  learn  it  in  this 
way  to-day  though  it  has  been  written  in  the 
book  and  nobly  expounded.  It  was  when 
the  temple  was  lost  that  men  learned  its 
limitation  as  well  as  its  true  glory.  It  was 
not  wrought  out  in  speculative  theory  but  in 
the  hard  facts  of  a  painful  discipline  that 
Jehovah's  songs,  the  songs  of  Zion,  could  be 

i  Ps.  li.  17. 
12 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

sung  in  a  foreign  land.  Thus  the  presence 
of  Jehovah  everywhere  was  proved  and  the 
borders  of  Zion  were  enlarged.  This  could 
not  come  to  perfection  all  at  once  ;  even  our 
"  monotheism "  is  still  limited  in  practice, 
though  in  thought  it  has  attained  to  universal 
significance.  To  do  justice  to  the  actual 
facts  we  must  use  the  great  watchwords  of 
different  ages  and  speak  of  evolution  through 
election,  and  revelation  through  life.  These 
all  find  their  expression  in  literature,  most  of 
all  in  this  sacred  literature  which  tells  the 
story  of  man's  pilgrimage  toward  the  heavenly 
city,  the  home  of  truth. 

3.  The  Lost  Song. 

What  becomes  of  a  song  when  you  cannot 
sing  it  ?  That  depends  surely  upon  the 
character  of  the  song.  If  it  is  a  shallow 
jingle,  a  song  of  the  earth  and  of  the  hour,  it 
dies  upon  your  lips  in  the  face  of  a  great 
sorrow  and  disappears  for  ever.  If  it  is  of 
God  and  eternity  it  passes  through  silence  to 
a  larger  life.  Let  us  not  be  afraid  of  silence, 
13 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

it  has  its  part  to  play  as  well  as  speech. 
When  you  cannot  sing  the  song  you  can 
think  upon  its  meaning  and  it  may  strike 
more  deeply  into  your  heart.  We  can  read  of 
men,  like  Robertson  of  Brighton,^  who,  at  a 
particular  period  of  their  career,  lost  their 
theology  though  their  religion  did  not  die. 
To  such  men  the  hour  of  silence  was  fruitful, 
they  fought  their  doubts,  they  gathered 
strength,  they  did  not  make  their  judgment 
blind.  A  larger,  richer  theology  was  born  of 
a  deeper  experience.  The  expression  of  this 
renewed  life  might  seem  to  the  narrow 
ritualist  or  hard  legalist  to  be  "  heretical," 
but  to  the  great  outside  world  it  carried  a 
wealth  of  inspiration  and  blessing.  Thus 
the  lost  song  has  ever  passed  through  silence 
to  a  larger  life.  The  cry  "  How  can  we  sing 
Jehovah's  song  in  a  strange  land  ? "  tells  us 
of  the  growing  pains  of  the  Hebrew  religion, 
it  shows  us  the  struggle  through  which  it 
passed  from  a  small  local  scene  to  the  fore- 
front of  the  world's  great  stage.  If  Judaism 
never  became  completely  universal,  it  gained 

1  See  Life  of  F.  W.  Robertson,  by  Stopford  Brooke. 
14 


The  Song  and   the  Soil 

something  of  a  world-wide  spirit.  Even  those 
who  would  fain  have  kept  the  music  of  the  song 
to  themselves,  when  they  learned  to  sing  it  in  a 
foreign  land,  rendered  a  service  to  humanity 
and  prepared  the  way  for  a  fuller  emancipation 
and  enfranchisement  of  religion  and  the  soul. 

And  the  music  of  this  song  ought  to  be 
heard  in  everything.  Our  foreign  lands  are 
not  all  a  matter  of  geography.  The  Church 
has  carried  the  gospel  into  every  land  and 
translated  the  Bible  into  every  tongue  ;  but 
can  we  say  we  have  no  strange  lands,  no 
provinces  of  life,  that  are  still  to  be  won  for 
God  ?  We  know  well  that  to-day  there  must 
be  an  historical  development,  an  extension  of 
God's  power  into  every  corner  of  the  soul 
and  every  sphere  of  human  life. 

Sorrow,  in  all  its  forms,  is  still  to  us  a 
foreign  land  although  it  is  the  common  lot  of 
mortals.  We  have  each  to  face  it  and  find 
God  in  it.  When  it  comes  upon  us  suddenly 
and  with  great  force  we  cry,  "  I  was  dumb,  I 
opened  not  my  mouth  because  thou  didst 
it."  ^     When  we    have  looked  into  the  face 

^  Ps.  xxxix.  9. 

15 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

of  some  great  disappointment  that  has  dis- 
located all  our  plans  and  brought  confusion 
into  our  life,  we  have  asked  the  pertinent 
question,  "  How  can  I  be  expected  to  sing 
the  Lord*s  song  in  this  strange  land  ?  "  Our 
silence  may  grow  sullen  and  our  hearts 
become  bitter  under  the  pressure  of  pain,  but 
if  we  come  out  of  our  sad  experience  with  a 
stronger  faith,  then  our  joy  is  purer  and 
richer. 

Politics  seem  to  many  people  to  be  a 
foreign  land  where  strict  honesty  and  noble 
sentiment  can  scarcely  be  at  home.  Some 
have,  in  a  cynical  mood,  maintained  that  we 
cannot  in  this  region  hold  the  same  standard 
of  truth  and  kindness  that  we  expect  in  the 
home  and  the  church.  This  is  a  wretched 
dualism,  we  can  only  have  two  standards  if 
we  have  two  gods.  One  of  these  gods  is 
likely  to  be  a  devil,  a  patron  of  false  com- 
promise and  corrupt  greed.  The  true 
patriots  are  those  who  are  endeavouring  to 
sing  the  Lord's  song  in  this  land,  a  song  of 
goodwill  and  helpfulness  to  those  who  are 
in  need. 

i6 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

Still  less  does  it  seem  possible  to  apply 
Christian  principles  to  all  our  relations  with 
men  of  different  blood  and  language.  They 
are  our  rivals  in  commerce  and  may  be  our 
enemies  in  war  ;  we  must  watch  them  keenly 
and  be  ready,  at  any  moment,  to  meet  them 
in  fierce  strife.  If  this  is  true  then  we  must 
confess  that  we  have  not  yet  solved  the 
problem  that  faced  the  patriots  in  Babylon. 
There  are  whole  tracts  of  human  life  that  are 
in  the  sway  of  strange  gods  and  that  do  not 
yet  acknowledge  the  Prince  of  Peace.  In  all 
lands,  and  in  all  churches.  Christian  men 
need  to  meditate  upon  this  ancient  question 
and  find  that  there  is  still  a  deep  suggestive- 
ness  in  the  words,  "  How  can  we  sing  the 
Lord's  song  in  a  strange  land  ?  **  We 
cannot  be  content,  and  the  spirit  of  our 
religion  cannot  be  fulfilled,  until  in  all 
spheres  of  life  and  in  all  regions  of  the  world 
the  actual  rule  of  the  Christ  is  accepted,  and 
we  can  say  in  the  largest  sense,  "  On  His  head 


are  many  crowns."  ^ 


1  Rev.  xix.  12. 

17 


11. 


THE  ATTRACTIVE  POWER  OF 
TRUE  RELIGION. 

Isaiah  II.  2-4;   Micah  IV.   1-4. 

I.  The  Place  of  the  Passage  in  Hebrew 
Literature. 

We  have  here  a  passage  which  appears  in 
two  places,  and  the  simplest  explanation  of 
that  fact  is  that  it,  at  one  time,  existed  separ- 
ately and  was  placed  by  different  editors  in 
two  different  collections.  If  we  were  com- 
pelled to  attribute  it  to  either  Isaiah  or  Micah, 
Isaiah  must  certainly  have  the  preference,  as 
he  was  an  inhabitant  of  Jerusalem  and  loved 
the  city.  Micah,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a 
countryman,  and  found  in  the  cities  of  Samaria 
and  Jerusalem  the  chief  cause  of  offence 
against  Jehovah  ;  his  denunciation  of  those 
cities  and  especially  his  prediction  of  the 
18 


The  Power  of  True  Religion 

destruction  of  Jerusalem  made  a  deep  impres- 
sion.^ We  cannot  think  that  the  peasant 
prophet  of  the  Judean  lowlands,  in  the 
eighth  century  B.C.,  cherished  any  such  lofty 
ideal  for  the  future  destiny  of  the  city  that 
he  denounced  ;  he  was  concerned  with  its 
present  corruption  rather  than  its  future 
exaltation.  For  Isaiah  the  case  was  different, 
he  shared  the  life  of  Jerusalem  and  did  not 
merely  denounce  it  from  the  outside  ;  he  had 
a  message  of  hope  as  well  as  a  fierce  indict- 
ment, and  believed  in  redemption  after 
judgment,  if  only  for  a  remnant.  This  may 
be  seen  clearly  from  that  noble  '*  Song  of  the 
City  "  which  all  regard  as  genuine.^  In  the 
Book  of  Isaiah,  then,  this  poem  has  found  a 
suitable  home,  as  the  supreme  interest  of 
that  prophet  was  in  the  city  of  David,  and  he 
cherished  desires  and  hopes  for  the  future 
welfare  of  Zion,  even  if  he  did  not  express 
them  in  this  precise  form.  Still,  after  all,  it 
is  more  likely  that  these  words  came  to  us 

1  Mic.  iii.  12  ;  Jer.  xxvi.  i8. 

2  Isa.  i.  21-26  ;  ct.  also  "  The  Song  of  the  Vineyard," 
V.  1-7. 

19 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

from  a  disciple  of  the  prophet  who  lived  at 
least  two  centuries  later,  in  the  age  of  Ezekiel 
and  Deutero-Isaiah.  We  are  not  able  to  fit 
this  passage  into  any  particular  period  of 
Isaiah's  political  activity  and  popular  preach- 
ing, though  to  some  scholars  it  still  seems 
possible  to  regard  it  as  a  dream  of  his  youth 
or  the  hope  of  his  old  age.  Isaiah's  message, 
however,  as  we  know  it,  belongs  to  a  different 
order  of  thought.  Instead  of  creating  glow- 
ing pictures  of  the  distant  future  for  men  of 
faith,  he  is  engaged  in  a  severe  struggle  to 
teach  the  true  nature  of  faith  and  the  moral 
character  of  worship.^  To  retain  the  passage 
for  Isaiah  at  the  expense  of  unduly  narrowing 
its  meaning  is  too  great  a  price  to  pay.  It 
does  not  do  full  justice  to  this  great  hope  to 
say  that  the  nations  will  not  give  up  their 
own  worship  but  merely  acknowledge  Jehovah 
as  the  most  upright  and  truest  God.^  Long 
ago  it  was  clearly  seen  that  the  promise  had 
a  much  larger  scope.  "The  representation 
appears  in  a  highly  purified  form,  and  worthy 

^  Isa.  vii.  9  ;  i.  lo-i 

2  Duhm,  cf.  Gray,  The  International  Commentary, 
20 


The  Power  of  True  Religion 

of  both  prophets,  that  the  nations  shall  make 
their  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem  not  for  the 
purpose  of  offering  sacrifice  there  but  to  learn 
God's  way,  the  knowledge  of  Whom  shall  go 
out  from  there  over  the  world — a  splendid 
presentiment  which  has  received  its  fulfilment 
in  Christianity."  ^  The  nobler  view  depicted 
in  these  words  demands  the  later  date.  It 
was  only  through  the  slow  painful  discipline 
of  many  generations  that  this  consciousness 
of  a  high  vocation  and  this  vision  of  world- 
wide service  was  reached. 

It  is  worth  while  repeating  that  there  is  the 
closest  connection  between  literature  and  life, 
the  life  of  godly  men  to  whom  we  owe  so 
much,  the  life  which  has  proved  itself  to  be 
one  of  the  highest  organs  of  the  divine 
revelation.^  The  fact  that  we  must  now 
regard  the  Book  of  Isaiah  not  as  the  work  of 
one  man  but  as  a  library  of  prophetic  litera- 
ture, reflects  great  light  on  the  struggles  of 
those  distant  days.  The  revelation  in  this 
book  is  now  seen  to  be  larger  and  more  varied 
than    ever    before.     The    original   Isaiah   of 

1  Gesenius,  1821.  2  gee  p.  78. 

21 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

Jerusalem  stands  more  clearly  before  us  with 
his  presentation  of  the  kingship  of  Jehovah, 
his  call  to  faith  and  social  service.^  Then 
we  have  the  great  "  Book  of  Consolation  " 
which  gave  comfort  to  a  broken-hearted 
people  when  the  threatenings  of  the  earlier 
prophets  had  received  a  terrible  fulfilment.^ 
Belonging  to  a  still  later  age  we  find  the 
predictions  of  world  judgment  and  the  final 
vindication  of  Jehovah^s  people.^  Into  this 
storehouse  also  are  gathered  many  fragments, 
the  work  of  nameless  souls  who  poured  their 
best  thoughts  and  richest  life  into  this  great 
stream  of  literature. 

The  fact  that  in  so  many  cases  these 
beautiful  pictures  have  been  placed  alongside 
of  the  stern  preaching  of  the  earlier  prophets 
and  their  fiery  predictions  of  judgment,  shows 
a  living  belief  that  judgment  cannot  be  the 
last  word,  that  in  spite  of  man's  perverseness 
there  Is  mercy  in  the  heart  of  God.*  Surely, 
so  thought  these  men,  death  and  destruction 
cannot  he  the   final  purpose  of  the  eternal 

1  Isa.  vi.  2  isa.  xl.-lv. 

^  Isa.  xxiv.-xxvii.  *  Cf.  Isa.  iv.  2-6. 

22 


The  Power  of  True  Religion 

God,  the  promises  to  our  fathers  cannot 
altogether  fail.  Here  was  a  true  faith  that 
manifested  itself  not  only  in  the  men  of 
great  creative  genius  but  also  in  the  minds 
of  lowly  compilers  who  would  not  willingly 
let  die  any  great  inspired  word.  Thus  in 
this  sacred  literature,  and  all  round  the  various 
systems  into  which  it  has  been  built,  there 
plays  the  light  of  a  great  belief  in  the  mean- 
ing of  history  and  in  the  unfailing  providence 
of  a  gracious  God. 


2.  The  Growth  of  the  Idea. 

As  a  mere  matter  of  theory  or  of  God's 
power,  considered  in  the  abstract,  a  particular 
piece  of  literature  could  be  inspired  at  any 
time,  but  this  has  been  shown  by  a  careful 
reading  of  the  Scriptures  to  be  a  mechanical 
view — the  product  of  a  theology  that  has  gone 
too  far  from  actual  life.  Even  in  the  earlier 
day,  men  who  thought  upon  "  the  ways  of 
God "  in  a  simple  manner  could  see  that 
there  had  been  an  advance  from  lower  to 
loftier  views  of  God  and  duty,  that  the 
23 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

Christ  came  in  "the  fulness  of  time"  to 
give  a  richer  reality  to  thoughts  that  had 
long  been  struggling  for  expression.  This 
truth,  held  at  first  in  a  vague  imperfect  form, 
now  shines  out  with  wonderful  clearness. 
Not  only  is  it  in  harmony  with  one  of  the 
leading  ideas  of  our  time,  it  has  also  been 
abundantly  illustrated  by  the  historical  study 
of  the  sacred  writings.  We  can  trace  the 
growth  of  the  Hebrew  nation  and  the 
gradual  enlargement  of  the  religion  that 
this  nation  was  destined  to  give  to  the 
world.  The  people  had  to  conquer  a  home 
for  themselves  and  a  measure  of  real  politi- 
cal unity,  before  the  prophetic  message  could 
enter  deeply  into  their  life  and  grow  into  a 
system  of  living  truth  of  more  than  national 
significance.  The  blessing  said  to  have  been 
given  to  Abraham  appears  to  mean  that  his 
seed  should  become  so  numerous  and  pros- 
perous that  they  would  excite  the  admiration 
and  envy  of  surrounding  people.^  The 
Israelites  did  not  at  first  claim  the  whole 
world  or  even  the  whole   of  Palestine  for 

^  Gen.  xii.  3  ;  etc. 
24 


The  Power  of  True  Religion 

Jehovah  their  God  ;  they  acknowledged  the 
presence  and  power  of  other  gods  in  adjoin- 
ing territories.^  The  thing  that  made  it 
specially  hard  for  David  to  suffer  banishment 
was  that  he  would  be  driven  from  the  wor- 
ship of  Jehovah  his  God.^  In  those  days 
the  natural  action  for  men  who  joined 
another  tribe  was  to  attach  themselves  to 
the  god  of  that  tribe,  as  religion  permeated 
all  the  activities  of  life.  No  doubt,  even 
then  the  Hebrew  leaders  had  a  noble  thought 
of  their  God,  the  One  Who  had  called  them 
into  existence  as  a  nation  and  given  them 
great  privileges  as  His  servants.  This  faith 
maintained  itself  as  the  one  power  that  gave 
unity  to  the  scattered  clans ;  the  God  of 
Israel  conquered  the  local  gods  and  revealed 
Himself  as  the  real  source  of  natural  bless- 
ings. Through  the  conflict  with  Baal  wor- 
ship the  thought  of  Jehovah's  nature  and 
power  was  enriched.  This  involved  fierce 
conflicts  under  the  leadership  of  patriotic 
warriors  and  fiery  prophets.  The  great 
prophets,  whose  sermons  have  come  down  to 
1  Judg.  xi.  24.  2  ,  Sam.  xxvi.  19. 

25 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

us  from  the  eighth  century  before  the  Christ, 
had  received  a  great  inheritance  from  the 
past  but  they  had  still  a  great  work  to  do. 
They  found  the  people  relying  too  much 
on  ritual,  and  treating  the  worship  of  Je- 
hovah too  much  like  that  given  by  their 
neighbours  to  other  gods.  It  was  their 
task  to  set  forth  what  we  would  call  the 
moral  character  of  God.  They  did  not  do 
this  in  any  abstract  way  as  critics  and  phil- 
osophers, nor  could  they  speak  in  the  con- 
ventional tone  of  the  modern  preacher. 
While  they  regarded  themselves  as  conser- 
vatives who  would  uphold  or  restore  the 
best  traditions  of  the  past,  there  was  a 
certain  vein  of  originality  in  their  teaching  ; 
there  was  a  strong  and  clearer  emphasis  on 
the  fact  that  religion  is  goodness.  Goodness 
they  thought  of  as  good  citizenship  ;  the 
good  man  was  one  who  walked  before  God 
in  a  spirit  of  humility  and  acknowledged 
the  claims  of  brotherhood,  paying  special 
heed  to  the  cry  of  the  oppressed  and  the 
helpless  widows    and  orphans.^     When  this 

1  Isa.  i.  17  ;  Hos.  vi.  6 ;  Amos  v.  11,  24. 
26 


The  Power  of  True  Religion 

is  spoken  of  as  ethical  monotheism,  attention 
is  called  to  the  fact  that  they  did  not  begin 
from  the  thought  of  one  God  and  argue 
consciously  for  one  all-prevailing  law,  but 
they  laid  such  stress  upon  the  claims  of 
social  goodness  and  civil  righteousness  as 
binding  upon  all^  that  it  must  be  seen,  upon 
further  reflection,  that  there  is  one  living 
God,  the  King  of  all  men.  Many  Jews 
never  saw  the  full  consequence  of  such 
teaching,  and  remained  in  the  region  of  re- 
ligious tribalism,  but  the  prophetic  move- 
ment advanced  on  this  high  plane.  Under 
the  influences  of  this  teaching  of  the  pro- 
phets, thoughtful  men  learned  to  look  upon 
their  past  history  as  a  divine  discipline,^  and 
it  is  seen  that  "  election  "  is  to  service  and 
not  merely  to  privilege.  Such  a  great  move- 
ment could  not  go  forward  without  reactions 
and  disappointments.  The  natural  man 
would  cling  persistently  to  the  thought 
that  the  chief  purpose  of  a  god  was  to  give 
material  prosperity  and    success   against  the 

1  Deut.  viii.  3  ;  Isa.  xl.-lv.   See  especially  the  Servant 
passages. 

27 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

outside  enemy.  Such  a  bare  outline  as  this 
cannot  do  justice  to  a  complex  situation  ;  it 
deals  in  general  terms,  leaving  aside  all  the 
picturesque  details  of  a  struggle  that  went 
on  unceasingly.  The  conflict  between  what 
we  call  "  superstition  "  and  the  higher  faith 
entered  into  all  spheres  of  political  and 
domestic  life ;  it  was  a  struggle  between 
great  thoughts  and  deep-seated  instincts 
and  long-established  customs.  But  while 
to  the  last  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  kept  within  national  limits,  and  in  many 
cases  coarse,  narrow  features  mark  the  picture 
of  the  future,  yet  it  is  no  exaggeration  to 
say  that  the  great  leaders  of  the  people 
came  to  the  vision  of  a  national  vocation 
that  carried  in  itself  a  suggestion  of  world- 
wide service. 


3.  The  Statement  of  the  Passage. 

It  seems  probable   that   we   have  here    a 
poem  in  three  strophes  or  verses,  and  that 
in   each  of  these   divisions  we   have    a  dis- 
tinct feature  of  the  picture  of  the  glorious 
28 


The  Power  of  True  Religion 

future.^  Here  is  set  forth  first  the  exaltation  of 
Zion ;  Jehovah's  mountain  is  to  be  established 
at  the  head  of  the  mountains,  or  to  be  acknow- 
ledged as  the  chief  of  the  mountains.  It  is 
possible  that  a  physical  heightening  as  well  as 
a  religious  supremacy  may  be  implied  in  this 
prediction.  Zion  thus  exalted  and  acknow- 
ledged as,  so  to  speak,  the  religious  metro- 
polis of  the  world,  shall  draw  to  itself  vast 
numbers  of  people  of  different  nationalities. 
By  the  eye  of  faith  the  prophet  sees  them 
flowing  in  great  streams  to  the  holy  city,  and 
they  themselves  declare  that  the  purpose  of 
their  pilgrimage  is  to  go  up  to  Jehovah's 
mountain  and  to  the  house  of  the  God  of 
Jacob.  The  reason  why  they  seek  to  visit 
the  sanctuary  of  Jehovah  is  then  given  ;  it 
is  not  merely  to  bring  sacrifice  and  find 
favour,  but  to  receive  teaching.  For  Zion  is 
the  source  of  religious  instruction,  and  from 
Jerusalem  the  word  of  God  starts  out  upon 
a    mission    of  mercy    to    mankind.       Thus 

1  There  are  three  strophes  of  six  lines  each,  but  in 
that  case  the  couplet,  "  They  shall  sit  every  man,"  etc., 
is  not  an  original  part  of  the  poem. 

29 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

Jehovah  is  recognised  as  the  judge  or  arbi- 
trator between  nations.  His  decisions  will  be 
gladly  accepted  outside  the  bounds  of  Israel. 
The  result  of  God's  rule  entering  into  human 
life  shall  be  abiding  peace  and  prosperity. 

"  Nation  shall  not  lift  up  sword  against  nation, 
Neither  shall  they  learn  war  any  more. 
But    they    shall    sit    every  man    under    his  vine    and 

under  his  fig-tree ; 
And  nought  shall  make  them  afraid." 

Simply  to  state  in  plain  words  the  con- 
tents of  the  poem  is  to  show  that  we 
are  moving  in  a  realm  of  great  religious 
ideas.  The  modern  man  may  be  stirred  to 
such  impatience  with  the  fact  that  it  all 
centres  so  clearly  round  Jerusalem  that  he 
is  in  danger  of  branding  the  whole  thing 
as  narrow  and  parochial.  But  when  we 
talk  so  proudly  about  "  the  universe  "  and 
despise  local  traditions  and  sentiments,  we  do 
well  to  ask  whence  came  this  large  ordered 
world  of  which  we  claim  to  be  citizens  ; 
is  it  not  also  a  thought  that  has  grown 
through  the  centuries  and  to  which  the  men 
of  Jerusalem  have  contributed  their  share  ? 
30 


The  Power  of  True  Religion 

Think,  then,  without  prejudice,  of  the  rich 
instruction  implied  in  the  simple  statements 
of  this  short  poem.  It  shows  that  the  Jews, 
with  their  centre  at  Jerusalem,  have  now 
come  to  the  clear  conviction  that  their  God 
is  supreme,  and  therefore  the  place  of  His 
sanctuary  must  become  glorious  in  the  sight 
of  the  world.  It  is  His  presence  that  gives 
strength  and  dignity  to  the  city.  This  God 
is  so  related  to  the  people  of  the  earth  that 
the  manifestation  of  His  presence  will  attract 
countless  multitudes.  Men  feel  that  their 
great  need  is  instruction,  a  divine  light  must 
fall  across  life's  pathway  if  men  are  to  know 
how  to  live  and  how  to  treat  each  other. 
The  acknowledgment  of  a  common  Lord, 
the  source  of  true  teaching  and  the  giver  of 
justice,  is  the  condition  of  that  peace  for 
which  men  hungered  in  those  weary,  restless 
days.  There  is  a  fine  spiritual  logic  in  the 
passage  ;  the  things  that  are  placed  side  by 
side  have  a  vital  relationship  to  each  other 
and  not  a  mere  external  connection.  We 
ought  to  be  able  to  see  this  more  clearly 
than  the  original  writer  as  we  read  his  pro- 
3^ 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

gramme  in  the  light  of  larger  experience. 
We  need  not  repeat  the  statement  that  no 
one  local  sanctuary  can  meet  the  spiritual 
needs  of  the  human  race,  that  if  Christianity 
is  to  be  more  than  a  mere  name  the  modern 
Babylons  must  be  conquered  in  the  name  of 
the  God  of  righteousness.  When  this 
national  feature  is  allowed  for  it  is  still  a 
great  thing  that  this  disciple  of  the  prophets 
sees  so  clearly  into  the  connection  of 
spiritual  forces,  and  that  while  placing  the 
scene  in  his  own  city  he  has  dreamed  a 
dream  large  enough  for  the  world.  Thus 
he  glorifies  noble  teaching  and  gives  the 
real  condition  of  peace  as  the  common 
reception  and  acknowledgment  of  great 
principles. 

4.  The  Missionary  Idea  in  the 
Passage,  and  its  Permanence. 

A  number  of  the  ideas  mentioned  above 

would    bear    further    meditation    and    fuller 

expansion,  but  we  are  now  more  particularly 

concerned  with    one,    namely,  the  attractive 

32 


The  Power  of  True  Religion 

power  of  a  great  religion.  There  is  a  great 
confidence  that  a  real  revelation  from  God 
has  been  given,  and  that  such  a  revelation 
will  be  its  own  evidence,  and  will  draw  to  it 
sincere  truth-seeking  spirits.  Later,  there 
came  the  command  to  go  forth  and  teach  all 
nations,  and  the  great  thought  that  the 
possession  of  an  important  truth  carries  with 
it  the  obligation  to  missionary  service.  But 
first  this  side  of  the  missionary  idea  was 
born,  that  God  will  make  the  place  of  His 
dwelling  glorious  with  a  glory  that  will 
break  down  local  barriers  and  sectarian 
prejudice.  It  may  seem  strange  to  us  that 
the  Jew,  who  later  gained  the  reputation  of 
"  a  hater  of  mankind,"  should  have  set  forth, 
in  such  noble  forms,  beliefs  that  imply  a  real 
relationship  between  the  men  of  different 
nations — a  relationship  that  is  deeper  and 
stronger  than  the  superficial  differences  that 
divide  them.  Here  is  faith  in  the  presence 
of  God  and  the  power  of  His  revelation, 
faith  in  the  need,  dignity,  and  capacity  of 
man,  faith  in  the  strength  and  beauty  of 
truth  and  the  influence  of  teaching,  faith  in 
c  33 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

a  brighter  future  for  which  men  yearn  and 
which  God  will  grant.  All  these  expressions 
need,  for  our  day,  to  be  translated  into  larger 
forms,  but  the  germ  of  great  things  is  here. 
Specially  do  we  need  this  thought  that  the 
highest  religion  will  be,  in  the  best  sense, 
attractive ;  it  will  have  a  gentle  influence 
because  of  what  it  is  in  itself,  just  because 
the  life  of  God  is  in  it  it  cannot  be  kept  in 
any  "  holy  city,"  men  will  come  for  it  and 
carry  it  forth.  In  this  sense  was  the  re- 
ligion of  Old  Testament  times  missionary, 
that  there  grew  up  in  Israel  a  great  gift  of 
God  which,  "  shining  more  and  more  unto 
the  perfect  day,"  could  not  be  confined  by 
limitations  of  place  or  nationality,  and  with- 
out formal  propaganda  forced  its  way  out 
into  the  life  of  the  world. 

The  permanence  of  this  idea  is  one  of  the 
outstanding  features  of  our  time.  To-day, 
in  all  Christian  nations,  there  is  a  strong 
manifestation  of  the  missionary  spirit, 
preachers  and  teachers  are  sent  forth  through- 
out the  world ;  the  organisation  for  this 
kind  of  work  is  growing  and  becoming 
34 


The  Power  of  True  Religion 

constantly  more  effective.  We  cannot  now 
dwell  upon  the  advantage  and  dangers  of  all 
this  machinery  ;  this  one  fact,  however, 
demands  our  attention  :  there  must  be  a 
living  relation  between  the  life  of  a  nation 
and  its  missionary  service.  The  Jews 
became,  in  a  certain  measure,  a  missionary 
people  because  they  were  led  by  God  to  a 
richer  conception  of  truth  and  a  stronger 
thouorht    of   reliorlon    than    that  which   their 

o  o 

world  possessed.  We  cannot,  then,  press 
the  distinction  between  home  and  foreign 
missionary.  We  may  find  foreign  mission- 
ary work  in  our  own  city  and  in  our  own 
souls  ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  assistance  of 
our  foreign  missionaries  must  not  be  merely 
in  our  financial  support  and  their  self- 
sacrificing  spirit,  but  it  must  have  its  real 
basis  in  the  character  of  the  nation  that  sends 
them.  Thus  it  is  seen  that  the  right  solution 
of  our  own  political  and  social  problems  is  a 
part  of  foreign  missionary  work.  If  we 
cannot  conquer,  to  a  larger  extent,  the  power 
of  drink,  ignorance,  and  vice  within  our  own 
borders,  we  cannot  do  the  highest  kind  of 
35 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

missionary  work.  If  Christian  nations  can- 
not bring  principles  of  justice  into  their 
treatment  of  weaker  peoples  and  their  rela- 
tions with  each  other,  to  that  extent  do  they 
fall  short  of  the  prophetic  programme.  The 
time  has  gone  by  when  the  missionary  work 
can  be  considered  as  being  summed  up  in  an 
effort  to  give  peace  to  the  individual  soul,  so 
that  heaven  may  be  accepted  as  the  deliver- 
ance from,  and  the  compensation  for,  the  ills 
of  earth.  The  relationship  of  man  to  God, 
indeed  of  individual  men  to  God,  must 
always  be  the  basis  of  religion,  the  inspira- 
tion of  all  high  service.  But  we  must  now 
construe  the  service  more  broadly,  we  must 
realise  that  religion  has  to  create  a  city  of 
God  here,  a  society  whose  members  seek  to 
live  in  righteousness  and  enjoy  that  peace 
which  can  be  based  on  righteousness  alone. 
The  sense  of  the  Divine  presence,  the  influ- 
ence of  high  teaching,  the  attractiveness  of 
noble  life,  the  community  of  need  and  desire, 
or  the  true  brotherhood  of  men — insomuch 
as  Christian  nations  are  succeeding  in  giving 
a  living  expression  to  these  religious  ideas, 

36 


The   Power  of  True  Religion 

we  may  say  that  the  true  Jerusalem  is  finding 
a  place  on  earth  ;  and,  at  least,  let  us  in  our 
churches  beware  lest,  when  we  have  elaborated 
the  missionary  machinery  to  high  perfection, 
there  should  be  radical  weakness  in  the  inner 
life.  It  is  not  a  final,  finished  theology  that 
we  can  send  out  in  definite  parcels,  but  a 
living,  growing  faith  that  we  must  share  with 
mankind.  The  oneness  of  humanity  means 
now  something  larger  than  ever  before,  but 
we  rejoice  that  in  this  charming  picture  from 
a  distant  time  there  is,  with  all  its  simplicity, 
a  suggestion  and  promise  of  a  fellowship  that 
is  spiritual  and  eternal. 


37 


III. 

THE  MISSIONARY  SERVANT. 

Isaiah  XL II.   1-4. 

In  the  series  of  poems  contained  in  the 
chapters  xl.-lv.,  which  in  their  spirit  and 
style  form  in  substance  one  discourse,  the 
purpose  is  distinctly  stated,  namely,  to  com- 
fort Jehovah's  people  and  inspire  them  to 
new  courage  by  the  vision  of  a  glorious 
destiny.  These  chapters  are  now  generally 
regarded  as  the  work  of  a  prophet  whose 
name  and  exact  place  of  residence  are  un- 
known, who  was  moved  by  the  Spirit  of  God 
to  give  'consolation  to  the  sorrowing  exiles. 
He  bases  his  message  of  comfort  on  a  great 
theology,  a  lofty  view  of  God,  splendidly  set 
forth  in  the  noble  introductory  chapter  (xl.). 
Jehovah,  the  Creator  of  the  world,  the  Supreme 
Guide  of  history,  has  called  him  to  the 
ministry    of    mercy.     In    that    dark    hour, 

3? 


The  Missionary   Servant 

when  the  nation  was  in  ruins,  and  the  plans 
of  its  leaders  in  hopeless  confusion,  nothing 
but  a  great  thought  of  God  could  act  with 
creative  healing  power.  We  cannot  at  this 
point  attempt  to  expound  the  whole  theology 
of  the  prophet  who  has  been  called  "  Deutero- 
Isaiah."  Suffice  it  to  say  that  it  was  in  the 
hour  of  sorrow  that  the  mission  of  the  nation 
began  to  take  on  a  v/ider  outlook.  Why 
indeed  should  this  great  God  build  up  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem  and  bring  together  the 
scattered  sons  and  daughters  of  Zion  if  there 
were  not  some  great  purpose  in  view  ? 
This  thought  is  not  worked  out  into  a 
complete  philosophy,  it  is  not  freed  entirely 
from  all  national  limitations,  but  there  is  less 
of  hostility  to  "  the  heathen,"  and  there  is  a 
looking  towards  the  great  truth  that  those 
whom  God  redeems  and  to  whom  He  reveals 
Himself  must  in  their  turn  be  witnesses  and 
light-bearers.^  This  "  election "  is  from 
the  free  sovereign  mercy  of  Jehovah  and 
not  from  Israel's  merit ;  out  of  the  richness 
of  His  nature,  the  largeness  of  His  love,  the 

^  xlii.  6  ;  xliii.  lO. 

39 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

God  of  Israel  lavishes  upon  His  people  this 
undeserved  and  unrequited  generosity.  The 
very  statement  of  such  a  love  has  in  it 
something  evangelical,  something  that  will, 
when  it  is  understood,  overpass  the  limits  of 
mere  nationality. 

I.  The  Servant  Idea  and  the  Servant 
Passages. 

It  is  true  that  this  comes  out  most  clearly 
in  the  four  passages  which  are  regarded  as 
separate  poems  and  thought  by  some  scholars 
to  be  of  later  date/  There  the  figure  of  the 
servant  appears,  elected  to  teach  the  nations, 
conscious  of  a  mission  larger  in  its  scope 
than  the  ministry  to  Israel,  subject  to  mis- 
interpretation and  persecution,  bearing  the 
burden  of  pain  for  the  benefit  of  others. 
Many  of  the  keenest  scholars  still  believe 
that  these  poems  stand  in  their  proper  place 
and  form  the  loftiest  points  of  Deutero- 
Isaiah's  teaching.  On  this  view,  Israel,  in 
the  hour  of  weakness  and  apparent  extinction, 

1  xlii.  1-4;  xlix.  1-6;  1.  4-9;  Hi.  I3~liii.  12. 
40 


The  Missionary   Servant 

is  led  to  the  great  thought  that  she  is  a 
missionary  nation,  that  she  must  bear  witness 
in  a  gentle  spirit  to  an  unbelieving  world. 
Not  only  is  the  light  in  Jerusalem  kindled 
by  Jehovah's  presence  to  be  so  pure  and 
strong  as  to  attract  those  who  are  hungering 
for  the  truth,  there  is  to  be  an  effort  to  carry 
that  truth  into  distant  lands.  This  is  then 
the  nearest  approach  to  the  great  command, 
"  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  make  disciples 
of  all  nations."  ^  The  ideal  is  there,  whether 
it  is  this  great  poet's  conception  of  Israel's 
election  to  service  or  whether  it  is  a  picture 
of  an  individual  teacher  and  sufferer  whose 
destiny  it  is  to  give  a  larger,  richer  meaning 
to  the  service  of  Jehovah.  The  principles 
that  underlie  the  statement  imply  a  oneness 
of  humanity  and  a  universality  of  religion 
that  can  only  come  to  full  expression  through 
much  painful  progress.  The  greatness  of 
the  missionary  idea  is  seen  more  clearly 
when  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  process  by 
which,  like  all  great  truths,  it  has  been 
wrought  into  the  substance  of  the  world's 
^  Matt,  xxviii.  19. 
41 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

highest  life.  Like  the  belief  in  one  God, 
the  hope  of  immortality,  and  other  central 
ideas  of  the  Christian  faith,  this  thought  that 
men  of  different  races  must  minister  to  each 
other  in  the  highest  things  has  grown  to 
clearness  of  expression  through  centuries  of 
silent  preparation.  This  could  not  possibly 
be  accomplished  in  any  one  generation  in  a 
world  arranged  and  ruled  on  the  same 
principle  as  ours.  It  required  that  the 
Hebrews,  very  similar  in  their  origin  and 
character  to  other  Semitic  tribes,  should  first 
be  separated  from  their  neighbours  by  the 
growing  strictness  of  their  law  and  the 
severer  demands  of  their  God.  This  in- 
volved bitter  struggles  within  the  nation 
itself,  springing  from  the  attempt  to  make 
the  law  of  Jehovah  supreme  in  all  spheres 
and  produce  "  a  holy  nation."  This  attempt 
was  scarcely  well  on  the  way  under  the  noble 
movement  represented  by  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy,  when  the  people  were  sent 
forth  to  learn  from  the  hard  logic  of  facts 
that  the  truth  could  live  away  from  the  soil 
and  religion  exist  apart  from  the  temple.  It 
42 


The  Missionary   Servant 

was  indeed  a  complex  movement,  and  many 
good  men  found  it  difficult  to  adjust  them- 
selves to  the  different  aspects  of  it.  The 
nobler  men  among  the  Jews  were  driven  to 
turn  their  attention  from  the  local  forms  of 
worship  to  the  large  universal  aspects  of  the 
truth.  Their  next  effort  was  to  build  that 
truth  into  a  system,  keep  it  pure,  guard  it 
from  the  attacks  of  those  who,  in  the  very 
process  of  sharing  it,  would  once  more 
weaken  and  degrade  it.  So  the  movement 
went  forward,  first,  separation  for  the  sake  of 
serving  Jehovah,  then  a  higher  view  of  the 
nature  of  that  service  ;  a  vigorous  attempt 
to  embody  this  service  in  city  and  temple, 
then  the  sharp  lesson  that  the  truth  is  some- 
thing greater  than  either  city  or  temple  ;  an 
exultant  cry  caused  by  a  noble  interpretation 
of  history,  "  Our  God  has  been  teaching  us 
great  lessons,"  ^  then  the  vision,  given  to  a 
few  noble  souls,  that  the  divine  thing,  the 
lesson  from  God,  cannot  be  for  ourselves 
alone.  This  reaches  its  height  in  the  picture 
of  the  servant.  This  servant-idea,  whether  it 
^  Deut.  viii. 

43 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

is  that  of  a  prophet  nation  or  a  personal 
minister,  is  essentially  Christian  in  its  scope 
and  significance  ;  that  is,  it  shows  thoughts 
struggling  for  expression  which  have  attained 
in  Christianity  a  freer  movement  and  a 
supreme  embodiment  in  the  life  of  the 
Christ.  The  servant,  having  a  call  to  carry 
the  religion  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  nation, 
addresses  the  distant  isles  and  offers  to 
meet  the  hunger  and  expectation  of  their 
peoples/  The  same  servant  faces  fierce  op- 
position with  the  confidence  that  God,  who 
is  on  the  side  of  truth,  is  more  than  all 
the  opposing  forces.^  The  silent  sufferer, 
the  God-cursed  man,  bearing  the  sorrows 
of  his  kind  or  of  mankind,  presents  a  still 
deeper  view  of  such  ministry,  a  view  that 
is  prophetic  of  the  noblest  missionary  work.^ 
In  the  small  Book  of  Jonah  we  have  the 
other  side  of  the  picture.  Here  is  pre- 
sented a  different  type  of  a  prophet,  one 
who  is  chiefly  concerned  with  prediction 
in  a  mechanical  sense  and  with  his  own 
personal  glory.  This  man  is  reluctantly 
ixJix.  I.  2  1.  7.  siiii.  5. 

44 


The  Missionary  Servant 

driven  to  the  foreign  field  and  is  content 
with  the  r6le  of  a  mere  prophet  of  venge- 
ance. One  cannot  help  feeling,  as  we  study 
the  teaching  of  this  wonderful  little  book, 
that  there  is  an  element  of  satire  in  it,  that 
it  is  a  keen  protest  against  religious  narrow- 
ness. The  Jonah  of  this  book  is  no  real 
prophet,  but  the  writer  of  it  is  deeply 
imbued  with  the  prophetic  spirit.  If  we 
could  know  more  clearly  and  closely  the 
circumstances  of  the  Jewish  Church  at  the 
time  when  it  was  written,  we  might  enter 
even  more  fully  into  its  spirit.  As  it  is, 
we  feel  that  the  keynote  of  it  is  to  be  found 
in  the  words  attributed  to  the  men  of  Nine- 
veh :  "Who  knpweth  whether  God  will 
not  turn  and  repent,  and  turn  away  from 
His  fierce  anger,  that  we  perish  not  ?  '* 
And  every  generous  soul  welcomes  the 
statement,  "  And  God  saw  their  works, 
that  they  turned  from  their  evil  way  ;  and 
God  repented  of  the  evil  which  He  said 
He  would  do  unto  them  ;  and  He  did  it 
not. 

That    this    thing    "  displeased    Jonah    ex- 
45 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

ceedingly "  is  to  us  a  revelation  of  this 
"prophet's"  littleness  of  soul,  and  we  re- 
joice in  the  large  sympathy  of  the  question 
with  which  the  book  closes,  "And  should 
not  I  have  pity  on  Nineveh,  that  great  city  ; 
wherein  are  more  than  six-score  thousand 
persons  that  cannot  discern  between  their 
right  hand  and  their  left  hand,  and  also 
much  cattle  ? "  Our  pride  and  petulance  is 
rebuked,  our  narrow  dogmas  and  small 
ecclesiastical  interests  shrink  into  their  pro- 
per proportions  when  thus  set  in  the  larger 
light  of  God's  great  purposes  and  humanity's 
pressing  needs. 

2.  The  Foundation  of  the  Servant's 
Work. 

The  work  of  the  servant  rests  securely 
upon  the  divine  call  and  God-given  equip- 
ment. In  this  whole  Book  the  movement  is 
from  God  to  man  :  what  man  can  do  by  his 
worship  or  work  is  infinitely  small ;  it  is  in 
the  reality  and  beneficence  of  Jehovah's 
purpose    that  strength   is   found.     It  is  the 

46 


The   Missionary   Servant 

great  revelation  of  God  that  gives  the  noble 
thought  of  service.  Here  particularly  the 
thought  that  election  is  not  to  mere  privilege 
but  to  service  receives  special  prominence.^ 
God's  delight  in  the  servant  is  linked  with 
the  work  that  he  shall  do.  The  purpose  of 
the  calling  is  that  he  may  publish  law  or 
spread  religion  ;  this  is  the  high  vocation  in 
which,  through  the  submission  of  the  servant, 
the  God  of  heaven  finds  satisfaction.^  The 
God  who  calls  him  equips  him  for  the  high 
task. 

This  belief  in  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  of 
Jehovah,  as  an  endowment  fitting  men  for 
royal  service  or  prophetic  ministry,  like  all 
other  great  truths,  has  had  a  long  ^  complex 
history  before  it  appears  in  this  pure  form. 
To-day  there  are  those,  even  in  the  Christian 
Church,  who  either  bind  this  sacred  influence 
to  magical  ceremonies  or  find  it  most  fully 
in  the  startling  and  sensational.  We  are 
tempted  to  say  that  these  are  but  remnants 
of  earlier,  cruder  forms  of  thought,  but 
perhaps   we    do    well  to    guard    against    the 

1  xlix.  6,  7.  2  xlii.  4.  3  xi.  2. 

47 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

pride  of  intellectual  refinement  and  to 
remember  that  the  Divine  Spirit  is  still 
compelled  to  work  in  imperfect  forms. 
Indeed,  what  form  can  perfectly  represent 
the  pure  thought  of  God  ?  This  much, 
however,  we  must  say,  that  this  noble  picture 
of  a  quiet  servant  who,  in  his  steady,  thought- 
ful work  of  teaching,  proves  the  power  of 
"  the  Spirit's "  presence  with  him,  is  one 
of  the  highest  points  of  Old  Testament 
prophecy.  Here  the  Spirit  is  not  manifested 
in  violent  energy  of  patriotic  passion  or 
ecstatic  emotion.^  There  is  a  steady  radiance 
of  light  and  love  ministering  to  human  need. 
The  Spirit  here  does  not  seize,  overpower,  and 
startle,  It  enters  into  the  life  of  the  soul  to 
give  abiding  wisdom  and  strength.  Men 
believed  in  spirits  of  various  kinds  that 
entered  into  human  life  with  mysterious 
power  and  lawless  action.  The  relation  of 
these  strange  forces  to  the  God  of  Israel  was 
not,  all  at  once,  worked  out  clearly,  but  as 
the    prophets  came    to  a  loftier  thought    of 

^  Judg.  iii,   lo;    xiv.    6;     i  Sam.  x.    lo;  xix.   20; 
2  Kings  ii.  9,  etc, 

48 


The  Missionary  Servant 

God  it  was  seen  that  all  forces  must  be 
subject  to  His  sway  and  all  spirits  obedient 
to  His  will.  As  the  whole  world  becomes 
God's  world,  so  religion  becomes  a  power 
ruling  the  whole  man  ;  the  message  of  the 
teachers  gains  high  intellectual  qualities  and 
great  moral  force.  The  Spirit  becomes  the 
creative,  guiding,  and  inspiring  power  in  the 
highest  sense  ;  at  this  stage  it  is  possible  to 
have  the  ideal  of  a  teacher  who,  while  he 
arises  within  the  nation,  represents  a  faith 
that  is  beginning  to  chafe  against  its  national 
barriers. 


3.  The  Power  of  Gentleness. 

One  of  the  most  important  features  of  this 
picture  is  that  such  stress  is  laid  upon  the 
influence  of  quiet  teaching.  In  those  days 
men  knew  the  stern  coercion  of  custom  or 
law  ;  they  were  quite  familiar  with  displays 
of  unbridled  enthusiasm  in  connection  with 
patriotism  or  religion  ;  they  had  known  also 
from  old  times  the  reverence  given  to  "  wise 
men,"  men  who  could  give  practical  guid- 
D  49 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

ance.  In  the  wonderful  story  of  Elijah  we 
learn  that  "  the  still  small  voice  "  may  bring 
a  revelation  of  God  that  is  lacking  in  the 
violent  earthquake  or  fierce  storm.^  It  is 
difficult  to  say  how  far  the  presentation  of  a 
truth  at  a  particular  time  is  in  all  or  any  of 
its  features  new.  But  when  we  have  read 
the  older  records  and  note  the  frequency  of 
ecstatic  outbursts  and  fierce  denunciations  as 
forms  of  prophetic  life,  we  feel  that  here  is  a 
distinct  recognition  of  the  superiority  of 
gentle  reason  and  patient  love.  There  may 
be  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  human 
nature  has  its  rights  as  well  as  its  weaknesses 
and  needs,  that  the  soul  must  not  be  over- 
whelmed by  outside  force  or  driven  by  fierce 
gusts  of  alien  passion.  Our  Lord  was  a 
public  speaker,  he  lifted  up  his  voice  to 
address  the  crowd,  at  times  he  was  fierce  in 
his  indignation  against  hypocrisy  and  bigotry, 
yet  the  prevailing  impression  he  has  left  is 
that  of  gentleness.  When  we  think  of  the 
use  that  has  been  made  of  superstitious 
terror  and  brute  force  to  bring  men  into  the 

1  I  Kings  xix.  12. 

50 


The  Missionary  Servant 

fold  that  bears  His  name,  we  feel  that  we  can- 
not reconcile  such  things  with  His  spirit  and 
teaching.  In  fact,  when  men  turn  with 
diss^ust  from  some  shameful  things  in  the 
history  of  the  Church,  they  find  relief  from 
the  nightmare  in  the  restfulness  of  His 
presence,  in  the  conviction  that  He  has  in- 
carnated so  completely  the  ideal  of  strong 
faith  and  gentle,  persuasive  power.  It  was  a 
true  instinct  that  led  the  evangelist  to  apply 
this  glorious  passage  to  his  Master*s  avoid- 
ance of  undue  sensation  and  useless 
publicity.^  That  which  created  "  Judaism  " 
and  enabled  it  to  live  for  a  while  with  the 
temple  and  to  survive  when  the  temple  was 
finally  destroyed,  was  just  this  recognition  of 
intellectual  and  spiritual  elements  in  religion 
that  can  be  taught.^  This  also  may  produce 
hard  tradition  and  cruel  dogma,  but  that  is 
because  even  the  great  things  must  have 
their  share  of  human  weakness.  This  belief 
in  a  system  of  living  truth  that  can  be  taught, 
because  there  is  something  in  man  that  needs 
and  demands  it ;  this  glorification  of  the 
1  Matt.  xii.  18-20.  2  Deut.  xi.  19. 

51 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

teacher  as  a  divine  force  that  makes  the 
message  prevail  as  the  sun  conquers  the 
darkness  —  this  is  the  heart  of  any  real 
missionary  idea.  Though  students  have 
done  so  much  for  the  world,  in  all  spheres 
of  its  life  we  still  glorify  "  the  practical  man  "  ; 
we  admire  the  success  that  comes  from  loud 
advertisement,  and  fancy  that  the  great  things 
are  created  in  the  roaring  excitement  of  the 
immense  crowd.  But  when  proper  weight 
has  been  given  to  our  denunciations  of 
Rabbinism,  scholasticism,  and  pedantry,  it  is 
well  to  remember  how  much  we  owe  to  the 
Book,  its  students,  translators,  and  expositors. 
It  speaks  now  in  all  the  languages  of  the 
world  ;  it  is  the  greatest  missionary  power, 
and  this  miracle  could  never  have  come  to 
pass  unless  men  had  loved  it,  collected  its 
scattered  fragments,  pondered  its  difficult 
sentences,  and  glorified  the  work  of  the 
teacher.  The  true  teacher  finds  his  strength 
not  in  external  authority  but  in  the  power 
of  the  truth  ;  he  labours  patiently,  knowing 
that  if  he  can  once  lead  men  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  vision  that  has  come  to  his 
52 


The  Missionary   Servant 

own  soul  they  will  see  in  it  the  very  life  of 
God. 


4.  The  Success  of  the  Servant. 

The  success  of  the  servant  is  assured ; 
he  may  have  hours  of  despondency  and  cry, 
"  1  have  laboured  in  vain,  I  have  spent  my 
strength  for  nought  and  vanity,"  ^  or  "  Will 
ye  also  go  away  ? "  ^  but  this  is  but  a  passing 
mood,  the  dark  shadow  that  falls  at  times 
over  every  earnest  soul.  He  who  does  not 
break  the  crushed  reed  or  quench  the  dimly 
burning  wick  shall  not  have  his  light  dimmed 
or  his  spirit  crushed  ;  he  will  establish  the 
reign  of  religion  in  the  earth,  and  the  coast- 
lands  shall  wait  in  expectant  mood  for  his 
teaching.  Truly  a  noble  faith  this,  faith  in 
the  teacher's  high  mission,  in  the  power  of 
truth,  in  the  need  and  capacity  of  human 
nature.  God  gave  to  this  writer  a  large 
vision,  it  has  stood  there  upon  the  written 
page,  it  has  been  claimed  as  a  prophecy  of 
the  Christ,  it  has  given  cheer  and  stimulus  to 
1  xlix.  4.  2  John  vi.  67. 

53 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

many  a  lonely  worker  ;  those  who  would 
teach  any  great  truth  still  need  its  quicken- 
ing hope.  We  are  justified  in  ascribing  a 
missionary  character  to  the  passage  not 
simply  because  it  is  one  of  the  clearest 
statements  that  Israel  has  a  message  which 
no  temple  can  contain  and  no  wall  confine, 
but  because  of  its  own  nature.  The  truths 
presented  and  implied  have  in  them  a  move- 
ment towards  universality.  Behind  the 
picture  there  is  the  thought  of  great  truths 
that  men  outside  the  chosen  community 
need  and  desire.  There  is  the  vision  of  a 
God  who  rules  the  world,  and  who  has 
guided  its  history  in  such  a  way  as  to  make 
the  present  an  hour  of  opportunity.  This 
short  poem,  these  few  well-chosen  words, 
demand  for  themselves  a  rich  fulfilment. 
The  Jew  may  keep  to  himself  mere  local 
traditions  and  ceremonial  customs,  but  a 
message  with  such  an  evangelical  tone  refuses 
to  be  imprisoned  in  any  one  dialect.  It  is 
not  for  a  race  but  for  humanity,  not  for  an 
age  but  for  all  time,  because  it  comes  to  us 
from  men  who,  when  they  looked  up  to  the 
54 


The  Missionary   Servant 

heavens,  not  only  saw  evidences  of  God's 
power  but  also  heard  the  cry  which  is  the 
root  of  all  missionary  enterprise,  "Look 
unto  me,  and  be  ye  saved,  all  the  ends  of  the 
earth."  ^ 

1  xl.  26  ;  and  xlv.  22. 


55 


IV, 

THE  UNIVERSAL  HOUSE  OF 
PRAYER. 

Isaiah  LVI.  6,  7. 

It  is  possible  for  scholars  to  differ  as  to  the 
exact  amount  of  "  liberality  "  that  is  to  be 
ascribed  to  this  text,  and  we  are  rightly 
warned  against  severing  it  from  its  context 
and  forgetting  the  hard  legal  elements  by 
which  it  is  surrounded.^  It  may  be  that 
these  words  come  from  a  period  when  there 
was  in  the  Jewish  community  considerable 
diversity  of  opinion  and  sharp  discussion  con- 
nected with  this  very  subject.  Perhaps  in 
that  time  there  were  some  "advanced 
thinkers  "  who,  seeing  that  the  true  spiritual 
sacrifice  could  be  separated  from  the  temple, 
drew  the  conclusion  that  the  temple  might  be 
dispensed  with.  If  so,  that  was  a  mistake. 
1  By  Duhm. 
56 


Universal   House  of  Prayer 

The  time  had  not  yet  come  when  the  great 
word  that  emancipates  religion  from  the 
control  of  sacred  places  could  be  spoken,  and 
even  when  that  word  was  spoken,  it  was  surely 
not  meant  to  tear  the  religious  life  and 
worship  away  from  local  memories  so  that  it 
might  wander  forth  as  a  disembodied  spirit 
in  a  superfine,  ethereal  freedom.^  The  word 
that  destroys  monopoly  and  shames  sectarian 
bitterness  is  not  intended  to  take  out  of 
religion  all  national  life  and  patriotic  feeling. 
The  men  who  were,  five  hundred  years  before 
the  Christ,  putting  their  strength  into  the 
building  of  their  own  temple,  were  doing 
more  than  they  knew  for  the  higher  life  of 
the  world.  This  they  assert  in  their  own 
tenacious  and  narrow  fashion,  when  they 
claim  that  this  house  of  Jehovah  shall  be  a 
House  of  Prayer  for  all  nations.  The  asser- 
tion cannot  be  dismissed  as  mere  sectarian 
arrogance  and  fanatical  patriotism,  there  is  in 
it  the  consciousness  of  possessing  truth  that 
is  of  more  than  local  meaning  and  applica- 
tion. It  is  one  of  the  tragic  things  in  human 
1  John  iv.  21. 

57 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

life  that  a  great  thought  must  be  wrought 
into  visible  form  in  order  to  play  its  part  in 
the  world,  and  that  when  men  seek  to  give 
it  the  form  appropriate  to  their  time  and  place, 
it  may  become  narrow  and  even  corrupt.  But 
when  we  study  the  creeds  and  forms  of  a  dis- 
tant age  we  must  remember  that  it  was  the  noble 
faith  and  not  the  imperfect  expression  that  gave 
the  inspiration  and  energy.  The  temple  was 
built  as  a  manifestation  of  faith  in  God's  good- 
ness and  man's  need  to  worship. 

I.  The  Welcome  to  the  Foreigner. 

We  have  here  the  distinct  assurance  that 
Jehovah  is  opposed  to  an  arrogant  exclusive 
spirit  towards  the  foreigners  and  others, 
who  were  regarded  in  the  strict  legal  sense  as 
ineligible  to  become  members  of  the  com- 
munity.^ The  great  thing  is  not  the  bodily 
condition  or  the  difference  of  race  but  the 
willingness  to  submit  to  Jehovah  and  to  sub- 
mit to  His  ordinance.  It  is  true  that  some 
among  the  people  took  a  narrower  view,  or 
1  Deut.  xxiii.  1-3. 

58 


Universal  House  of  Prayer 

this  exhortation  would  not  have  been  uttered  ; 
it  is  also  true  that  by  the  conflicts  that  took 
place  later  for  the  purity  and  even  the  exist- 
ence of  their  religion  the  hearts  of  the  stricter 
Jews  were  hardened  against  the  outside  world. 
Yet,  except  in  the  very  heat  of  battle,  they 
did  not  lose  sight  altogether  of  the  larger 
significance  of  their  faith.  The  vision  of 
God's  greatness  carried  with  it,  even  in- 
directly, the  oneness  of  the  world  and  the 
brotherhood  of  men.  Foreigners  are  at  first 
welcomed  to  the  brotherhood  under  stern 
precise  conditions  ;  but  this  is  a  beginning, 
and  it  is  difficult  for  us  now,  with  all  our 
wisdom,  to  see  how  else  the  movement  could 
have  begun.  That  it  did  begin  at  Jerusalem, 
under  great  difficulties  and  limitations,  gives 
to  that  city  an  everlasting  name.  When  we 
look  at  the  later  history  and  present  condition 
of  Jerusalem  we  are  inclined  to  regard  it 
with  supercilious  scorn  as  a  vulgar  story  of 
coarse  fanaticism  and  sectarian  strife.  But 
there  are  moments  and  moods  when  those 
who  have  no  excessive  regard  for  ceremonies 
or  superstitious  reverence  for  sacred  places 
59 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

feel  that  there  is  an  ideal  element  running 
through  it  all.  "  For  four  thousand  years 
Jerusalem  has  been  the  altar,  the  confessional, 
the  mourner's  bench  of  the  human  race. 
This  has  been  the  place  where  human  nature 
has  meditated,  repented,  and  aspired  ;  here  the 
infinite,  the  undying,  and  spiritual  in  man 
have  expressed  themselves  in  the  melody  of 
song  and  the  importunity  of  ceaseless  prayer  ; 
here  the  currents  which  drift  toward  God  in 
human  nature  have  come  to  share  ;  here 
their  swell  and  sweep  have  lifted  themselves 
into  the  Psalms  of  David,  the  prophecies  of 
Isaiah,  and  the  wailings  of  Jeremiah.  The 
place  has  an  infinite  charm  for  poor,  tempted, 
frail  humanity,  because  here  is  the  spot  where 
One  of  our  own  flesh  and  blood  first  con- 
quered the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  ; 
here  virtue  and  honour  and  purity  and 
holiness  and  tenderness  and  pity  and  sym- 
pathy and  charity  were  enthroned  and  in- 
vested with  the  prestige  that  comes  from 
succeeding.  They  failed  at  Athens  in  Soc- 
rates but  they  triumphed  in  Jerusalem  in 
Jesus  Christ.  Human  nature  was  digni- 
60 


Universal   House  of  Prayer 

fied  and  ennobled  by  the  success  of  Christ 
at  Jerusalem.  He  showed  what  man  can 
be  and  do."  ^ 

To  these  men  Jerusalem  had  come  to  be 
the  city  of  God  in  the  supreme  sense.  In 
the  earlier  days  it  had  been  a  capital  city  and 
a  royal  sanctuary.  Then  when  Samaria  was 
destroyed  and  local  sanctuaries  had  fallen 
into  disrepute  as  "  heathenish,"  the  claim  was 
made,  in  Deuteronomy,  that  there  is  one 
God  and  one  sanctuary.  When  this  claim 
was  most  vigorously  asserted  the  patriots 
were,  in  large  numbers,  torn  from  the  city 
and  sent  into  a  strange  land  to  learn  to  worship 
God  without  their  beloved  sanctuary.  But 
the  time  had  not  yet  come  for  men  to 
recognise  clearly  that  the  formula  "one 
God,"  rightly  understood,  means  that  the 
claims  of  rival  sanctuaries  fall  into  a  sub- 
ordinate place,  become,  in  fact,  matters  of 
sentiment  and  not  of  essential  faith.  For 
the  Jew,  Jerusalem  must  remain,  in  a  special 
sense,  the  city  of  God,  the  Holy  City,  a  place 
where  men  are  nearer  to  God  than  elsewhere, 

1  See  Note,  p.  138. 
61 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

a  shrine  to  which  pilgrims  from  different 
lands  turn  with  strong  desire.  Such  glory 
and  prestige  Jerusalem  must  have  from  her 
own  children  when  what  we  call  an  unkindly 
fate,  but  which  by  faith  we  may  recognise  as 
a  wise  providence,  scattered  them  over  the 
world.  But  here  we  may  have  a  proof,  more 
than  four  centuries  before  the  coming  of  our 
Lord,  that  men  outside  the  sacred  circle 
longed  to  share  in  its  life.  This  longing  is 
regarded  by  the  prophet  as  a  gift  of  God  and 
as  prophetic  of  the  future  glory  of  His 
house.  Men  must  curb  their  fiery  patriotism 
and  chasten  their  sectarian  temper  that  the 
pious  longing  of  the  stranger  may  be  encour- 
aged, that  Jerusalem  may  accomplish  its  real 
destiny  by  becoming  a  house  of  prayer  for 
humanity.  Humanity  did  not  mean  to  him 
what  it  means  to  us,  but  we  may  truly  say 
that  the  spirit  of  universalism  was  struggling 
with  the  legal  barriers  behind  which  it  was 
born. 


62 


Universal  House  of  Prayer 

2.  The  Nature  of  the  Fulfilment. 

Without  any  apologetic  discussion  of 
"  prediction  '*  in  the  stricter  sense,  we  may 
say  that  this  hope  has  been  fulfilled.  The 
history  of  Jerusalem  is  one  of  the  strange 
things  in  this  wonderful  world.  It  does  not 
enter  into  competition  with  Rome  or  Athens, 
it  belongs  to  a  different  order.  From  the 
time  that  David  made  it  the  capital  of  a 
nation  and  the  centre  of  its  religious  life,  it 
has  lived  in  the  full  light  of  history  and  has 
had  a  strangely  chequered  career.  It  has 
been  the  home  of  proud  patriots  and  fanatical 
zealots,  in  it  great  prophets  delivered  their 
message  and  met  their  fate.  The  halo  of 
legend  has  gathered  round  it  ;  its  sorrows 
have  been  chanted  in  plaintive  tones  and  its 
glories  sung  in  simple  strains.  Round  its 
walls  fierce  battles  have  been  fought,  and  in 
its  streets  the  blood  and  tears  of  many 
nations  have  been  shed.  Nations  and  sects 
have  contended  for  its  sacred  places,  and 
pilgrims  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe 
have  wended  their  painful  way  thither.     The 

63 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

pilgrims  and  tourists  of  to-day,  who  attain 
their  goal  with  less  expenditure  of  personal 
toil,  can  see  that  much  commercialism  is 
mingled  with  all  this  display  of  devotion,  but 
they  can  surely  see  that  the  real  basis  of  the 
matter  is  not  in  these  vulgar  accretions  but 
in  an  idealising  of  historical  facts  and  a 
glorifying  of  the  heroic  deeds  of  the  past. 
There  is  danger  in  this,  but  it  is  not  without 
its  noble  features ;  in  contending  for  the 
largeness  and  freedom  of  religious  thought 
we  must  still  remember  how  dependent  the 
great  majority  of  men  are  on  national  tradi- 
tion and  local  sentiment.  Through  it  all, 
however,  this  is  clear,  that  representatives  of 
all  the  great  nations  of  the  world  do  now 
look  to  Jerusalem  as  spiritually  "  the  mother 
of  us  all,"  and  in  that  symbolic  sense  the 
city  has  become  a  house  of  prayer  for  all 
nations.^ 

Still  we  cannot  be  content  with  this  ;  there 
is  something  even  greater  than  the  romance 
that  lingers  round  this  strange  chapter  in  the 
world's    history,    something    in    comparison 

1  Gal.  iv.  26. 
64 


Universal   House  of  Prayer 

with  which  all  that  the  visible  city  can  offer 
seems  mean  and  tawdry.  What  is  all  this, 
we  are  compelled  to  ask,  compared  with  all 
the  living  influences  that  have  gone  out 
into  the  world,  influences  which  refused  to  be 
bound  to  any  place  or  confined  to  any  one 
symbol.  We  must  then  seek  the  larger  ful- 
filment in  the  realm  of  ideas.  The  prophets, 
especially  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  who  were 
deeply  attached  to  the  city,  protested  against 
the  undue  exaltation  of  altar  and  temple. 
Though  these  men  do  not  give  the  specific 
analysis  of  religious  ideas  that  we  expect  from 
a  modern  teacher,  their  words  imply  that  there 
is  a  spiritual  reality  that  is  more  important 
than  the  outward  symbol.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
that  which  has  made  Jerusalem  a  power  in 
the  world,  made  its  name  stand  for  the  ideal 
city,  and  surrounded  its  memory  with  such 
a  halo  of  sacred  associations  is  that  it  was 
the  home  of  great  teachers  and  martyrs, 
messengers  of  God  who  bruised  their  sensitive 
souls  against  its  ignorance,  prejudice,  and 
stupidity.  It  is  in  the  light  of  the  teaching 
of  those  noble  men  that  Jerusalem  is  viewed 
E  6^ 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

to-day  by  its  most  intelligent  admirers.  The 
actual  city  is  glorified  because  its  past  is 
viewed  in  an  ideal  light,  and  much  more 
because  it  has  become  the  centre  of  a 
large,  intellectual  world  that  has  grown 
out  of  the  ministry  of  its  great  men.  It 
is  the  teaching  that  was  too  great  for 
Jerusalem  that  has  made  the  name  of 
Jerusalem  great. 

3.  Other  Elements  in  the  Picture. 

One  of  the  things  insisted  upon  here  is  the 
observance  of  the  Sabbath,  and  we  know  that 
at  the  time  of  the  Babylonian  exile,  and  later, 
this  institution  received  greater  emphasis  as 
a  religious  obligation  and  a  distinctive  feature 
of  Jewish  religion.  The  actual  origin  of  this 
institution  is  lost  in  the  dim  past,  but  after  all 
the  recent  discussions  we  can  still  say  that 
we  owe  the  Sabbath  to  the  Jews.  In  what 
rudimentary  form  it  may  have  existed  before 
their  time  is  uncertain.  In  our  Bible  we  can 
trace  a  distinct  movement  and  a  definite 
character.  In  our  Old  Testament  the  seven- 
66 


Universal   House  of  Prayer 

day  week  appears  and  Sabbaths  take  rank 
with  other  religious  festivals.^  In  later 
times  it  became  more  religious  and  ecclesi- 
astical ;  the  weekly  meeting  for  prayer  on 
this  day  helped  to  keep  Judaism  alive  in  a 
foreign  land.  In  still  later  times,  when  the 
fight  for  the  purity  of  the  Church  was  severe, 
the  strict  observance  of  the  Sabbath  became  a 
test  of  orthodoxy.  This  degenerated  into  hard 
legalism  and  petty  quibbling  until  it  called 
forth  the  protest  of  our  Lord.  The  condi- 
tions of  society  to-day  are  quite  different ;  it 
is  impossible  to  have  a  total  cessation  of  the 
varied  activities  of  our  complex  life.  But 
our  larger  experience  has  shown  that  there  is 
in  this  institution  of  the  Sabbath  a  permanent 
truth.  It  is  easy  to  ridicule  the  extremes  of 
scrupulousness,  amounting  to  superstition, 
that  have  been  manifested  in  this  regard, 
more  especially  by  Jews  and  Scotsmen.  But 
a  much  more  profitable  exercise  of  one's 
powers  is  to  find  the  positive  truth  and 
uplifting  power  in  any  great  institution.     As 

1  Isa.    i.    13;   Ex.  XX.   lo-ii;  Gen.  ii.    3;  Deut. 
V.  14-15  ;  Isa.  Iviii.  6. 

67 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

the  account  of  creation  suggests,  the  need  of 
periodic  rest  is  not  a  mere  ceremonial  demand 
but  is  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  if  we  are 
better  than  sheep  and  goats  "  which  nourish 
a  blind  life  within  the  brain,"  worship  will  go 
along  with  rest.  While  we  maintain  freedom 
of  worship,  and  release  all  worship  from 
restraint  and  coercion,  it  is  clear  that  the 
community  is  better  for  a  day  of  rest ;  it 
frees  many  from  the  drudgery  of  work,  the 
slavery  of  toil,  and  gives  to  all  who  enjoy  it 
the  opportunity  for  that  communion  with 
men  that  is  implied  in  the  public  worship  of 
God.  That  the  Sabbath,  notwithstanding 
the  controversies  surrounding  it,  and  the 
imperfections  attached  to  it,  has  helped  to 
free  men  from  the  bondage  of  materialism 
and  to  bring  them  to  a  closer  religious 
fellowship  can  scarcely  be  denied.  In  so  far 
as  this  is  true  it  has  been  a  religious  force. 

But  the  main  element  is  the  creation 
of  a  book.  At  a  time  when  the  Jews 
expected  the  temple  to  be  permanent  they 
were  unconsciously  preparing  the  way  for  a 
religion  that  could  live  without  it.  When 
68 


Universal   House  of  Prayer 

the  temple  was  lost  for  a  while  during  the 
Babylonian  exile,  the  men  who  preserved 
their  religious  loyalty  were  thrown  back  upon 
the  Sabbath  worship  and  the  study  of  the 
book.  The  result  of  this  was  that  when  six 
centuries  later  the  temple  met  its  final  fate, 
by  the  influence  of  the  school  and  the  posi- 
tion assigned  to  religious  teachers  the  religion 
was  in  no  danger  of  perishing.  Men  missed 
the  temple,  they  mourned  over  the  desolation 
of  Jerusalem,  but  for  them  the  problem 
"  How  can  we  sing  Jehovah's  song  in  a 
foreign  land  ?  "  had  been  solved  The  book 
had  become  a  bigger  thing  than  the  temple. 
The  temple  is  local  and  fixed  ;  the  book  can 
become  universal  by  means  of  its  free  move- 
ment. Men  must  travel  to  the  temple  and 
learn  its  language,  but  the  book  goes  out  to 
meet  men  and  speaks  to  each  man  in  his  own 
tongue.  May  we  not  say  that  the  Jews  of 
the  restored  temple,  gathering  together  their 
devotional  literature  for  use  in  their  house  of 
prayer  and  in  their  daily  life,  helped  to  make 
that  house  "  The  House  of  Prayer  "  for  all 
nations  in  a  different  and  a  larger  sense  than 

69 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

they  themselves  dreamed  of  ?  In  doing  this 
they  created  something  greater  than  any 
temple,  a  prayer  book  for  humanity  that  has 
exerted  an  influence  on  all  Christian  litursfies 
and  that  is  more  and  more  appealing  to  the 
heart  of  the  world.  These  psalms  and 
prayers  were,  no  doubt,  much  more  influenced 
by  local  struggles  and  sectional  differences 
than  now  appears  ;  we  must  in  their  case 
allow  something  for  the  softening  influence 
of  time  ;  the  small  human  entanglements 
tend  to  fall  away,  as  they  recede  into  the 
distance  of  the  past,  and  the  large  universal 
elements  are  free  to  do  their  noble  work. 
Here  everything  is  turned  into  devotion  and 
becomes  a  matter  of  prayer.  Prayer,  which 
does  not  rest  on  mere  command  but  rather 
on  deep-seated  instinct  and  pressing  need, 
here  becomes  vocal  and  finds  classic  expres- 
sion. Nature,  history,  the  life  of  the  com- 
munity and  its  particular  members,  all  these 
varied  regions  of  life  are  brought  within  the 
range  of  prayer.  It  is  true  that  there  are 
psalms  in  praise  of  "  the  law  "  in  the  ecclesi- 
astical sense,  for  how  could  that  great  realm 
70 


Universal   House  of  Prayer 

of  Jewish  life  be  neglected  In  a  book  of 
"  common  prayer,"  but  it  is  in  this  book  that 
we  learn  that  there  is  in  this  religion  some- 
thing deeper  and  richer  than  external  legisla- 
tion and  ritual  requirements.  Here  a  rich 
stream  of  spiritual  life  flows  freely,  reminding 
us  that  seekers  after  God  in  all  ages  and 
churches  have  much  in  common.  In  that 
temple  of  humanity  that  is  not  bounded  by 
any  sectarian  walls,  these  songs  and  prayers 
rise  continually  to  heaven.  The  passionate 
cry  "  My  soul  thirsteth  for  God  "  ^  cannot  be 
completely  met  by  any  symbol  but  only  by 
the  presence  of  God  Himself,  and  "  He  being 
Lord  of  heaven  and  earth  dwelleth  not  in 
temples  made  with  hands."  ^ 

1  Ps.  xlii.  2.  S  Acts  xvii.  24. 


71 


V. 


THE  CITY  OF  THE   EVER-OPEN 
DOOR. 

Isaiah   LX.  ii,  12. 

Deutero-Isaiah,  the  great  prophet  of  con- 
solation, speaks  in  glowing  language  of 
Zion's  future  glory .^  In  this  later  section 
of  the  book,  probably  written  by  a  disciple, 
the  richest  imagery  is  used  to  set  forth  the 
splendour  of  the  chosen  city — 

"  Arise,  shine  ;  for  thy  light  is  come, 
And  the  glory  of  Jehovah  is  risen  upon  thee. 
For,  behold,  darkness  shall  cover  the  earth. 
And  gross  darkness  the  peoples  ; 
But  Jehovah  shall  arise  upon  thee, 
And  His  glory  shall  be  seen  upon  thee. 
And  nations  shall  come  to  thy  light. 
And  kings  to  the  brightness  of  thy  rising." 

1  xlix.  i4ff. ;  Hi.  i  ff. ;  liv.  1-7. 
72 


City  of  the  Ever-open  Door 

It  is  well  for  us,  when  we  are  inclined  to 
criticise  too  severely  the  material  forms  that 
these  promises  assume,  to  bear  in  mind, 
what  such  passages  distinctly  assert,  that  it 
is  the  light  of  Jehovah's  presence  that  gives 
strength  and  beauty,  supremacy  and  attrac- 
tion, to  the  sanctuary.  There  is  the  faith 
that  the  God  who  dwells  in  heaven  must 
have  a  city  on  earth,  in  order  to  reveal  Him- 
self to  mankind,  and  for  the  Jew  this  city 
must  be  Jerusalem.  There  is,  we  must 
admit,  little  of  the  missionary  spirit  here  ; 
the  most  exclusive  Jews  might  adopt  this 
gorgeous  apocalyptic  imagery.  But  there  is 
a  blending  of  fine  ethical  elements,  and  after 
all  the  root  idea  is  the  majesty  of  the  Divine 
Presence.  The  gold  of  the  nations,  the 
treasures  of  the  sea,  the  obsequious  ministry 
of  kings, — these  are  effects  and  symbols  of 
that  heavenly  light  which  makes  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem  to  be  Salvation  and  her  gates 
Praise. 

"  Instead  of  brass  I  will  bring  in  gold. 
Instead  of  iron  I  will  bring  in  silver ; 
And  I  will  appoint  as  thy  government  Peace, 

73 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

And  as  thy  despot  Righteousness. 

No  more  shall  violence  be  heard  of  in  thy  land. 
Nor  rapine  and  ruin  within  thy  borders ; 
But  thou  shalt  call  thy  walls  Deliverance, 

And  thy  gates  Renown. 

No  more  shall  the  sun  be  thy  light. 
Nor  the  moon  for  brightness  illuminate  thee; 
But  Jehovah  shall  be  thine  everlasting  light. 

And  thy  God  thy  beauty. 

Thy  sun  shall  set  never  more 

And  thy  moon  shall  not  wane ; 
But  Jehovah  shall  be  thine  everlasting  light, 

And  thy  days  of  mourning  be  ended."  ^ 

It  was  not  the  size,  the  political  power, 
the  commercial  splendour,  of  Jerusalem  that 
inspired  such  high  hopes  and  dazzling  dreams, 
but  the  belief  that  here  was  the  city  of  God, 
the  dwelling-place  of  the  Most  High.  That 
belief  was  certainly  living,  even  if  it  at  times 
manifested  itself  in  coarse,  narrow  forms  ;  it 
nerved  men  to  fight  heroic  battles  and  it 
inspired  steady  service  in  dull  prosaic  times. 
This  enthusiasm  has  been  contagious,  it  has 
passed  outside  of  national  boundaries  and 
created  a  world-ideal — a  symbol  which  no 
earthly  city  can  completely  fulfil. 

1  Revised  translation  by  G.  H.  Box. 

74 


City   of  the  Ever-open  Door 

I.  The  Truth  in  the  Poetry. 

There  is  sober  truth  in  this  poetic  utter- 
ance which  the  world  has  acknowledged.  The 
central  truth  is  that  Judaism  had  a  real  con- 
tribution to  make  to  the  life  of  the  world, 
something  of  spiritual  quality  and  abiding 
significance.  The  presence  of  God,  the 
divine  light,  has  indeed  gone  forth  from  that 
city.  The  religion  and  the  literature,  the 
gift  of  God  and  the  growth  of  centuries,  has 
not  yet  done  its  work,  and  the  work  that  it 
has  done  can  never  be  forgotten.  We  refuse 
to  be  confined  to  the  measurements  of  those 
days  and  those  men  ;  we  who  can  view  the 
whole  movement  are  justified  in  seeing  a 
meaning  in  their  work  that  vindicates  their 
extravagant  language  and  exultant  tones. 
They  grasped  something  for  themselves,  some- 
thing that  on  certain  conditions  they  were  will- 
ing to  share  with  others.  We  cannot  justly 
reproach  them,  because  the  spirit  of  privilege 
and  monopoly  still  reigns  in  us  ;  but  we  can 
see  clearly  that  what  gave  strength  to  their 
vision  was  not  the  human  weakness  that  was  in 
75 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

it  but  the  fact  that  they  gave  the  central  place 
to  God  and  believed  that  what  comes  from 
God  the  world  needs  and  will  want  to  share.^ 
It  is  not  simply  that  they  despise  the  small 
gods  of  the  heathen  but  that  they  have,  even 
in  a  small  way,  grasped  the  thought  that  the 
light  and  glory  of  the  true  God  is  an  attrac- 
tive, unifying  force. 

We  need  not  dwell  on  the  fact  that  the 
hope  with  regard  to  Jerusalem  received  a 
literal  fulfilment  ^ ;  this  city  whose  history 
is  a  series  of  tragedies,  whose  changeful 
career  is  one  long  story  of  subjection  and 
destruction,  has  conquered  a  large  place  in  the 
world.  In  spite  of  past  sorrows  and  the 
tawdry  glory  of  the  present,  men  see  in  her 
the  symbol  of  the  unconquerable  kingdom. 
No  city  has  called  forth  a  more  stubborn 
heroism,  a  more  persistent  devotion,  a  more 
poetic  enthusiasm.  Men  would  fain  give  to 
Jerusalem  great  treasure  if  they  knew  how, 
because  they  are  convinced  that  she  has 
given  much  to  the  world.  The  glory  of 
Jerusalem  was  not  visible   in  the  dark  days 

1  Ps.  xlviii.  2,  and  pp.  33,  54.  ^  See  also  p.  63. 

76 


City  of  the  Ever-open  Door 

when  these  words  were  written  :  it  was  an 
ideal,  a  creation,  of  faith.  It  was  never  long 
sustained  in  actual  reality,  yet  men  have  felt 
that  in  some  strange  way  this  was  a  city  of 
faith  and  of  the  faithful.  The  wealth  that 
men  could  give  faded,  spoiled  by  factions  or 
scattered  by  ruthless  conquerers,  but  the 
wealth  of  tradition  and  faith  could  not  be 
destroyed. 

2.  The  Imperfection  of  the  Message. 

There  is  to  many  of  us  to-day  something 
distinctly  irritating  in  this  class  of  passages  ; 
while  we  admire  them  as  literature  and  as 
poetic  outbursts  of  patriotic  feeling,  we  find 
them  to  be  poor  and  limited  from  the  theo- 
logical point  of  view.  We  think  that  the 
Jew,  instead  of  learning  humility^  from  the 
teaching  of  the  prophets  and  the  sorrows  of 
his  nation,  has  become  narrow  and  arrogant, 
and  imagines  that  he,  as  the  favourite  of 
heaven,  is  to  enjoy  permanent  privilege  and 
superiority.  It  seems  the  height  of  spiritual 
1  Micah  vi.  8. 

77 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

pride,  this  idea  that  all  the  glories  of  heaven 
and  earth,  the  treasures  of  sea  and  land, 
are  to  be  tributary  to  Jerusalem.  That 
foreigners  are  to  be  the  slaves  of  the  Jews, 
doing  their  menial  work,  that  strange  people 
will  lick  the  dust  before  them  and  kings  bow 
reverently  in  their  presence— these  proud 
hopes  are  revolting  to  our  sense  of  Christian 
gentleness,  even  when  regarded  as  homage  to 
a  great  God  and  a  priestly  nation.^  All  this 
must  be  frankly  admitted,  and  we  must  ac- 
knowledge that  it  has  done  harm,  because  the 
Bible  has  so  long  been  read  without  any 
sense  of  historical  perspective.  There  is, 
however,  much  useful  instruction  here ;  it 
reminds  us  of  the  real  nature  of  this  great 
literature.  This  Book  of  God  is  also  a  book 
of  man  ;  its  real  glory  and  strength  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  is  not  a  mere  list  of  laws  or 
catalogue  of  abstract  doctrines,  all  its  greatest 
ideas  are  woven  into  the  texture  of  human 
life — a  life  that  through  long,  rude  struggles 
was  raised  to  sublime  heights. 

The  Christian  Church,  as  the  successor  of 

^  xlix,  23  ;  Ixi.  5. 

78 


City  of  the  Ever-open  Door 

Judaism,  has  enjoyed  much  worldly  success, 
it  conquered  barbarians  and  ruled  the  civilised 
nations.  Its  great  temples  still  excite  our 
wonder  and  stir  our  reverence.  The  priests 
have  trod  upon  the  necks  of  kings  and  exer- 
cised a  power  mightier  than  the  sword.  At 
one  period  all  the  treasures  of  the  world,  the 
gifts  of  its  science  and  arts,  were  poured  into 
the  lap  of  a  luxurious  Church.  Ecclesiastics 
might  point  to  these  scriptures  as  a  justifica- 
tion of  their  demands  and  claim  the  course 
of  events  as  a  fulfilment  of  prophecy.  In  the 
hour  of  such  success  there  were  many  noble 
souls  who  saw  clearly  that  the  highest  life  of 
the  Church  was  not  in  these  things,  but  in 
the  preaching  of  pure  truth,  in  the  care  of 
the  weak,  the  ministry  to  the  ignorant  and 
poor  ;  and  the  world  has  now  distinctly  re- 
jected the  ideal  of  ecclesiastical  rule  and 
priestly  monopoly.  We  do  well  to  reject 
these  outward  forms,  but  mere  negative 
criticism  and  refined  sarcasm  will  not  suffice ; 
the  only  way  in  which  we  can  supersede 
them  is  by  having  the  same  truth  in  a  nobler 
expression.  In  some  higher  way  religion 
79 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

must  be  supreme  and  the  temple  central  in 
the  life  of  man.  But  the  missionary  effort 
cannot,  and  will  not,  wait  until  the  perfect 
nation  and  the  pure  messengers  are  found. 
When  men  tell  us  to  leave  the  heathen  alone 
and  cleanse  ourselves  from  pride,  greed,  and 
hypocrisy,  their  message  should  be  accepted, 
but  not  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  given. 
We  welcome  the  reminder  that  our  mission- 
ary effort  involves  an  obligation  to  purify 
our  own  personal  and  social  life,  but  it 
may  be  that  the  desire  and  hope  of  send- 
ing out  the  truth  is  also  a  God-appointed 
way  to  uplift  our  own  life.^  The  way  in 
which  the  Jew  held  himself  in  the  face 
of  a  hostile  world  attracted  the  fierce 
criticism  of  foreigners,  but  it  also  drew 
attention  to  a  faith  that  could  challenge 
the  world's  scrutiny  and  respect.  Thus, 
while  we  acknowledge  the  limitation  of 
this  great  hope  and  reject  its  literal  form 
as  temporary,  it  may  give  us  the  spirit 
of  humility  to  remember  that  it  is  only 
by  the  lessons  that  come  to  us  from  cen- 
'  Cf.  p.  35. 

80 


City  of  the  Ever-open  Door 

turies  of  Christian  history  that  we  are 
able  to  make  this  rejection  in  an  intelli- 
gent  fashion. 


3.  The  Light  of  Hebrew  History. 

Suppose  we  turn  upon  this  passage  the 
light  of  history  drawn  from  the  study  of 
that  ancient  nation  and  seen  in  the  larger 
view  of  it  that  Is  now  possible  to  the  careful 
student.  "  The  open  door "  may  then  be 
shown  to  mean  something  that  was  hidden 
from  the  view  of  this  prophet.  He  wished 
that  the  door  of  the  Church  should  stand 
ever  open  to  receive  tribute  ;  that  was  his 
way  of  expressing  the  ideas,  God  is  supreme, 
religion  is  central,  the  Church  is  divine. 
Unless  we  interpret  his  imagery  as  a  noble 
symbolism,  the  ideas  behind  it  lose  some- 
thing ot  their  purity  by  being  clothed  in 
forms  of  this  world's  wealth.  Possibly  he 
did  not  see  that  this  policy  of  the  open  door 
had  been  the  divine  method  all  through. 
Recently  there  has  been  much  discussion  as 
to  how  much  Israel  owes  to  Egypt,  Babylon, 

F  81 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

Canaan,  Persia,  and  Greece.  These  in- 
quiries and  debates  are  natural  in  an  age  like 
ours,  when  men  of  science  are  deeply  inter- 
ested in  the  origin  of  all  forms  of  life  and 
the  nature  of  its  development.  Sometimes 
there  has  been  lack  of  "  academic  calmness  " 
on  the  one  side  and  the  other  ;  the  proud 
claims  on  behalf  of  Israel  as  an  organ  of 
divine  revelation  seem  to  act  as  a  chal- 
lenge and  an  irritant  on  the  minds  of  some 
thinkers,  while  zealous  defenders  of  those 
claims  have  not  been  lacking.  Those  who 
examine  this  great  literature  carefully  know 
that  whatever  has  been  borrowed  has  been 
amply  repaid  with  abundant  interest.  In 
fact  they  know  that  "  borrowing  "  is  a  phrase 
too  crude  and  mechanical  to  express  the  com- 
plex process.  The  Hebrews  conquered 
Canaan,  but  they  absorbed  much  of  its  spirit 
and  atmosphere  ;  they  rejected  Baal  worship, 
but  claimed  that  Jehovah  was  the  giver  of 
the  fruits  of  the  earth  ;  ^  they  refused  to 
worship  the  star-gods  of  Babylonia  and 
claimed  that  their  God  ruled  the  stars.^     In- 

1  Hos.  ii.  15,  1 6.  2  isa.  xl.  26;  xlvii.  13. 

82 


City  of  the  Ever-open  Door 

fluences  from  Persia  and  Greece  were  no 
doubt  treated  in  the  same  way.  Thus  the 
Hebrew  faith  was  not  an  empty  monotheism 
or  a  system  of  abstract  doctrines.  All  realms 
on  earth  and  air,  in  sea  and  sky,  and  in  the 
lands  beneath  the  earth,  were  gradually  an- 
nexed to  Jehovah's  dominion,  until  the  God 
of  the  fathers  was  the  God  of  the  whole 
world.^  Much  of  this  process,  like  all  the 
great  movements  of  life,  was  unknown  to 
those  in  the  midst  of  it ;  they  were  not  in 
a  position  to  survey  the  past  or  to  analyse  the 
present.  But  when  they  claimed  the  world 
for  their  God  there  was  the  weight  of  cen- 
turies of  throbbing  life  behind  them.  It 
was  because  they  were  both  exclusive  and 
receptive  that  they  grew  to  be  so  great  in 
their  own  realm.  There  was  a  catholicity  in 
their  thinking,  though  they  did  not  fully  ap- 
preciate its  logical  consequences.  What  they 
took  they  cleansed  and  uplifted.  When  they 
came  to  write  the  history  ot  their  race  they 
fitted  it  as  best  they  could  into  the  general 
framework  of  the  world's  life.  Simple 
1  Cf.  p.  25. 
83 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

stories  from  the  past  and  strange  beliefs  in 
the  present  were  treated  from  the  point  of 
view  that  there  is  one  God,  and  that  God  is 
the  God  revealed  in  the  history  of  the  past 
and  the  life  of  the  present.     The  whole  con- 
ception was,  if  not  a  missionary  idea,  then  the 
root  of  all  missionary  ideas,  when  the  time 
should  come  for  a  fuller  understanding  of  it. 
We  do  not  say  that  this  writer,  claiming  a 
central  position  for  the  temple,  had  all  this 
in  view,  but  we  maintain  that  in  estimating 
the  value  and  importance  of  his  position  we 
must   take    these   things    into   consideration. 
To  him,  at  least,  the  idea  of  God  is  central, 
and    from    God's    ownership    of    the    world 
there    comes    all    this    glorification    of    the 
temple.     To    some  extent    the  gold,  silver, 
and  precious  stones  are  the  mere  furniture 
or    drapery    of  the    faith.     He   also    would 
have  said,  "  Seek  Jehovah  first,  trust  Him, 
serve  Him  in  noble  fellowship,  and  He  will 
take  care  of  the  temple  and  of  you." 


84 


City   of  the  Ever-open  Door 

4.  Our  Lesson  from  the  Idea. 

When  we  are  thus  allowed  in  some 
measure  to  enlarge  and  transform  the  idea 
by  holding  it  in  the  light  of  Hebrew  history, 
its  applications  for  ourselves  become  clear. 
The  time,  we  know,  has  gone  by  for  any  one 
Christian  temple  in  East  or  West  to  mon- 
opolise power  and  rule  all  life,  even  within  a 
small  area.  Men  are  beginning  to  see  that 
this  is  not  the  highest  kind  of  dominion. 
The  appropriate  lesson  from  this  text  refers 
to  the  attitude  of  the  Church  towards  the 
great  outside  world.  The  doors  of  the 
temple  should  stand  open  to  receive  the 
world's  gifts,  and  its  windows  open  for  the 
fresh  breeze.  But  we  must  conceive  of 
these  gifts  in  a  large,  liberal  spirit ;  they 
are  gifts  not  only  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
building  and  the  support  of  the  ministry, 
but  also  for  the  fabric  of  our  thought,  the 
form  and  even  the  content  of  our  theology. 
The  supreme  act  of  faith  is  to  believe  that 
God  is  in  all  our  world,  the  guide  of  the 
living  present.     Organisation  we  must  have, 

85 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

definite  forms  of  worship  and  regular 
methods  of  communion,  but  these  must  be 
concerned  with  the  problems  of  the  present 
and  not  with  the  preservation  of  "  the  crust 
of  custom  "  that  comes  from  the  past.  It  is 
because  custom  was  broken  down  by  con- 
tact with  foreign  influences  and  new  social 
forces  that  the  prophets  had  to  give  new 
messages  as  to  the  nature  of  religion  and 
morality.  These  messages  have  proved  to 
be  permanent  in  their  spiritual  power,  but 
their  form  must  be  adapted  to  meet  new 
needs.  Science  and  art  bring  to  the  nations 
new  revelations  and  new  powers,  these  breed 
new  monopolies  and  slaveries.  It  is  the 
province  of  Christianity  to  care  for  the  free- 
ing of  the  slave,  not  only  the  distant  foreign 
slave  but  the  slave  under  the  shadow  of  our 
own  churches.  The  inspiration  that  comes 
to  us  from  the  great  prophets  of  the  past 
and  especially  from  the  life  of  the  Christ 
must  give  stimulus  to  new  forms  of  service. 
The  world  must  be  claimed  for  God  in  a 
broader  and  higher  sense.  New  movements 
of  thought  that  may  seem  at  first  to  be  quite 
86 


City  of  the  Ever-open  Door 

alien  may,  on  closer  examination,  be  found 
to  express  an  earnest  effort  to  embody  the 
old  truths  in  a  larger  form.  The  social 
message  of  the  Old  Testament  and  its  sug- 
gestions of  a  universal  faith  await  a  richer 
fulfilment.  When  we  speak  of  the  Christian 
religion  as  the  highest,  the  absolute,  or  final 
religion  we  surely  cannot  be  thinking  of  the 
scholastic  theology  of  a  particular  period,  but 
rather  of  the  spirit  of  freedom  in  it  which, 
because  of  its  noble  thought  of  God  the 
Father,  gives  power  of  assimilating  all  real 
gains  from  the  thoughts  of  keen  searchers 
after  truth,  all  living  ideas  that  are  not 
opposed  to  its  central  principle.  Not  to 
some  distant  future  must  we  defer  the 
picture  of  a  new  Jerusalem  whose  pilgrims 
come  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth.^ 
Each  church,  while  faithful  to  its  own  noblest 
traditions,  must  seek  to  be  an  institution 
that  is  open  to  all  sources  of  light  and  life, 
that  receives  from  the  world  rich  treasures 
and  consecrates  them  to  the  service  of  the 
sanctuary.      Such    a    sanctuary    will    receive 

1  Luke  xiii.  29  ;    Rev.  xxi.  24,  25. 

87 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

only  that  it  may  give  back  again  ;  it  will 
seek  to  place  the  stamp  of  heaven's  treasury 
on  much  that  we  are  tempted  to  regard  as 
earthly  coin  ;  it  will  seek  to  breathe  into  all 
forms  of  human  service  a  spirit  of  self- 
sacrifice  and  devotion,  so  that  nothing  that 
relates  to  human  welfare  can  be  regarded  as 
common  and  unclean.  Only  thus  can  the 
words  be  fulfilled — 

**The  Lord  shall  arise  upon  thee, 

And  His  glory  shall  be  seen  upon  thee." 


88 


VI. 


THE  KINGDOM  THAT  SURVIVES 
THE  SHAKING  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Haggai  II.  6-8;    Hebrews  XII.  26,  27. 

When  we  place  these  two  passages  side  by 
side,  whose  origin  is  separated  by  five 
centuries  of  time,  we  are  reminded  of  the 
fact  that  within  the  Bible  itself  we  have 
varied  stages  of  thought.  We  constantly 
speak  of  "  a  progressive  revelation  "  (Heb.  i. 
i),  but  we  need  to  realise  more  fully  what 
this  means  in  the  details  of  the  actual  thought 
and  life.  In  other  words,  we  need  to  remem- 
ber that  the  Bible  is  not  "a  book"  in  the 
narrow  sense  of  that  word  but  a  literature  in 
the  full  sense  of  the  term.  We  have  a  collec- 
tion of  books  that  came  into  existence  under 
varied  circumstances  and  at  widely  separated 
periods  of  time  ;  consequently,  in  that  which 
is  to  us  now  "  the  volume  of  the  book,"  ^ 
1  Ps.  xl.  7  ;   Heb.  x,  7. 

89 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

we  have  original  statements,  and  then  the 
later  interpretations  and  transformations/ 
A  striking  word  is  taken  from  the  past, 
lifted  into  a  larger  atmosphere,  and  given  a 
nobler  meaning.  This  is  true  even  within 
the  Old  Testament  itself,  and  this  statement 
is  more  richly  illustrated  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, where  the  specific  claim  is  made  that 
the  New  is  not  a  contradiction  of,  but  an 
enlargement  and  fulfilment  of,  the  Old.  The 
Old  Testament  is  rightly  called  "  a  prophetic 
book,"  and  is  said  to  contain  "  the  missionary 
idea "  because  there  is  so  much  in  it  that 
refuses  to  be  bound  down  to  any  mere 
local  significance.  Its  noble  inconsistencies 
show  the  struggle  of  the  truth  to  reach  forth 
into  the  common  life  of  humanity. 

I.  A  Pathetic  Note. 

This  is  seen  in  the  phrase  "  yet  once,  it  is 
a  little  while  "  or  "  yet  once  more  "  ;  if  we 
consider  it  carefully  and  in  a  sympathetic 
spirit  we  cannot  fail  to  find  in  it  a  reflection 

1  2  Sam.  vii.  8-16  ;  Isa.  Iv.  3,  4. 
90 


The   Kingdom  that  Survives 

of  human  life  In  its  varied  moods.  We  have 
here  the  mightiest  power  that  stirs  the  human 
spirit,  the  power  of  faith,  the  faith  that  gains 
the  victory  over  the  world.  But  is  there  not 
in  it  also  the  human  weakness  that  craves  for 
finality  and  longs  to  see  the  problem  of  the 
world-process  solved  by  one  sudden  mighty 
stroke  ?  This  man  knew  of  great  shakings 
in  the  not  distant  past  :  the  fall  of  Nineveh, 
the  defeat  of  Egypt,  the  destruction  of  Jeru- 
salem, the  conquest  of  Babylon.  Through 
all  these  convulsions  his  nation  had  lived  and 
suffered.  Those  now  left  in  Jerusalem  are  a 
small  remnant,  a  few  struggling,  discouraged 
patriots,  but  in  this  day  of  small  things  they 
still  believed  that  God  had  brought  them 
through  these  terrible  shakings  in  order  to 
prepare  them  for  a  noble  future.  This  was  a 
splendid  faith,  and  in  a  real  sense  history  has 
justified  it.  We  who  have  the  larger  view 
are  not  necessarily  greater  men  ;  the  prophet, 
in  his  own  way,  rose  above  the  world,  while 
we  may  be  allowing  it  to  crush  us.  He  looked 
for  one  more  great  shaking,  when  this  strug- 
gling Jerusalem  would  become  the  centre  of 
91 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

the  world,  when  admiring  nations,  overawed 
by  Jehovah's  power,  would  bring  into  this 
sanctuary  the  world's  precious  things,  the 
silver  and  the  gold  ;  then  would  the  temple 
abide  for  evermore  in  strength,  splendour,  and 
attractiveness.^  These  external  gifts  would  be 
a  symbol  of  a  rich  community  of  life. 

This  prophecy  did  receive  a  certain  measure 
of  literal  fulfilment ;  it  is  not  pure  fancy  but 
rests  on  sober  fact.  The  judgment  that  we 
have  now  concerning  the  narrowness  and 
limitation  of  the  prophet's  outlook  must  not 
blind  us  to  the  truth  and  value  of  his  state- 
ment. The  building  of  that  temple,  the 
piety  and  loyalty  of  that  small  community, 
was  a  thing  of  significance  for  the  world. 
That  is  not  a  sectarian  verdict ;  it  is  based 
upon  a  large  review  of  those  varied  and  subtle 
forces  that  have  built  up  the  complex  fabric 
of  modern  states  and  churches.  The  Jews 
clung  with  stubborn  determination  to  the 
task  of  restoring  their  city  and  building  their 
temple  until  this  became  the  centre  of  political 
and  religious  life,  a  rallying  point  for  patriotic 

1  Cf.  p.  78. 
92 


The  Kingdom   that  Survives 

Israelites  scattered  throughout  the  world. 
The  result  was  that  the  temple,  which  was  a 
bank  as  well  as  a  church,  received  contribu- 
tions from  the  faithful  to  such  an  extent  that, 
once  more,  it  became  a  rich  storehouse  of 
worldly  wealth.  Even  in  this  stage  of  the 
history  we  learn  that  the  gold,  silver,  and 
"  desirable  things  "  are  not  the  real  wealth  of 
the  Church.  These  things  encouraged  the 
worldly  spirit  among  the  priests  and  excited 
greed  among  foreigners,  so  that  in  the  second 
century  B.C.,  Syrian  kings  and  generals  came 
to  Jerusalem  not  to  worship  ^  but  for  the 
express  purpose  of  robbing  the  temple.  The 
silver  and  gold  did  not  save  the  Church  but 
rather  helped  forward  its  ruin.  The  Syrian 
tyrant  could  steal  the  money  but  he  could 
not  destroy  the  faith.  The  living  ideas  of 
trust  in  God  and  loyalty  to  the  Law  were  more 
powerful  than  gold  or  the  sword.  The  faith 
proved  itself  to  be  indestructible,  the  material 
forces,  here  as  elsewhere,  crumbled  to  decay. 
The  same  fact  is  illustrated  by  the  life  that 
gathered  round  the  temple  in  still  later  time, 

1  -Acts  viii.  27. 

93 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

when  our  Lord  drove  out  the  money-changers, 
and  declared  that  the  house  of  prayer  had 
been  transformed  into  a  den  of  thieves.^ 
The  vision  of  material  splendour  had  been  to 
some  extent  fulfilled,  but  the  prophetic  ideal 
was  realised  not  in  the  majesty  of  the  temple 
but  in  the  life  of  the  lowly  Nazarene.  The 
wealth  of  the  temple  and  the  fanatical  rever- 
ence that  men  had  for  it  availed  little  in  the 
day  of  judgment  when  the  might  of  Rome 
was  concentrated  on  the  doomed  city.  But, 
after  all,  how  little  was  lost  in  the  great  cat- 
astrophe that  seemed  to  so  many  to  be  the  end 
of  the  world.  The  religion  had  learned  to 
live  without  the  temple  ;  the  faith  was  free  to 
go  forth  and  assume  larger  and  nobler  forms, 

2.  A  Larger  Interpretation  of  the 
Text. 

The  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
belongs  to  this  later  time,  when  the  nations  of 
that  ancient  world  had  been  drawn  nearer 
together   and   the    shaking   must    be   more 

1  Isa.  Ivi.  7  ;  Matt.  xxi.  13. 
94 


The  Kingdom  that  Survives 

complex  in  character.  The  temple  had  passed 
through  its  last  great  tragedy  and  the  evangel- 
ists of  the  Cross  were  proclaiming  their  great 
message.  This  writer  claims  that  Christianity 
is  heir  to  all  that  was  really  of  permanent  value 
in  the  older  system.  That  is  regarded  as 
preparatory,  symbolic,  and  temporary ;  those 
who,  by  faith,  have  grasped  the  unseen  ideas, 
can  live  without  those  visible  forms  which  in 
their  day  were  rich  in  prophetic  power.  From 
this  point  of  view  he  feels  justified  in  giving 
a  larger  interpretation  to  the  ancient  word. 
To  him  the  shaking  does  not  mean  the 
material  enrichment  of  the  temple.  His 
vision  is  not  the  picture  of  a  restored  and 
glorified  temple  with  its  doors  ever  open  to 
receive  the  treasures  of  the  world.  The 
purpose  of  the  shaking  is  that  the  external 
temporary  things  may  be  cast  off  and  the 
abiding  truth  more  clearly  revealed.  There 
are  things  which,  by  their  very  nature,  cannot 
be  shaken,  and  the  man  who  lays  hold  of 
them  has  a  kingdom  that  cannot  be  moved. 
This  man,  no  doubt,  helped  many  timid 
wavering  souls,  and  he  still  cheers  and  inspires 
95 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

us  by  the  boldness  of  his  faith.  Probably 
he  also  had  his  moments  of  doubt  ;  it  was 
certainly  not  without  a  struggle  that  he 
reached  this  lofty  height  and  was  able,  in  a 
world  of  change,  to  look  out  with  calm  confi- 
dence and  claim  to  have  received  a  kingdom 
that  cannot  be  moved.  In  these  restless  days 
we  may  be  disposed  to  envy  him  his  simple 
faith.  But  when  we  look  a  little  closer  we 
may  see  that  it  is  not  a  simple  faith  in  any 
shallow  sense  ;  it  is  a  faith  that  possesses 
high,  intellectual  qualities,  it  seeks  to  rein- 
terpret history  and  to  face  all  the  new  problems 
in  the  light  of  knowledge  that  is  inspired  but 
not  enslaved  by  the  great  teachings  of  the  past.^ 
We  talk  much  in  our  time  about  living  in 
a  time  of  change  when  faith  is  tested  by  the 
demands  of  a  larger  view  of  the  world.  But 
it  is  well  to  remember  that  even  in  this 
regard  no  strange  thing  has  happened  to  us  ; 
the  prophets  of  the  earlier  ages  had  a  similar 
experience.  "  How  can  we  sing  the  Lord's 
song  in  this  foreign  land  ? "  is  not  a  new 
question  ;  it  has  often  been  wrung  from  the 
^  See  Chapter  I. 

96 


The   Kingdom  that  Survives 

hearts  of  men  who  wished  to  reconcile  the 
past  and  the  present,  who  desired  in  new 
circumstances  to  be  loyal  to  the  old  truth. 
We  know  that  Jews  and  Christians  have  felt 
this  most  keenly,  in  the  living  periods  of 
their  history,  because,  while  they  clung  to  a 
sacred  past,  they  had  a  faith  that  looked 
forward  for  still  richer  revelations  of  the 
divine  kingdom.  There  are  in  such  crises 
three  courses  open  to  the  individual  believer. 
These  three  pathways  were  followed  by  men 
in  the  Babylonian  exile  in  essentially  the 
same  spirit  as  men  follow  them  to-day  in 
Judaism  or  Christianity,  (i)  A  man  may 
lose  his  theology  or  his  faith  or  both.  He 
may  fall  away  from  his  trust  in  God  and 
declare  that  life  has  become  meaningless. 
Men  who  cannot  receive  the  new  light  feel 
that  the  change  is  all  loss  ;  God  has  gone 
away  with  the  ancient  form,  and  for  them 
there  is  no  new  vision.  (2)  Others  cling  to 
their  old  faith  and  cherish  a  still  deeper 
loyalty  for  the  forms  of  the  past.  That  is 
surely  better  than  the  utter  loss  of  faith  ; 
men  who  feci  that  for  them  God  is  in  the 
G  97 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

traditional  form  do  well  to  cling  to  that  sacred 
thing.  No  form  of  revelation  is  perfect,  and 
it  is  not  easy  to  acknowledge  that  the  shrine 
at  which  we  have  worshipped  may  be  broken 
and  cast  away  without  loss  to  the  world.  In 
regard  to  all  these  controversies  we  all  do 
well  to  cultivate  a  kindly  spirit  towards  those 
who  are  at  different  stages  of  the  spiritual 
movement.  (3)  The  still  higher  way  is  that 
which  has  been  trodden  by  the  real  leaders  of 
the  church  and  humanity.  These  "men  of 
light  and  leading"  have  found  that  the  new 
form  in  which  God  gave  the  truth  to  them 
was  a  larger,  more  glorious,  form  of  the  old 
faith  ;  after  the  pain  of  the  struggle  was  over 
they  saw  clearly  that  they  had  not  suffered 
loss  ;  they  refused  to  be  called  traitors  to 
the  old  religion  ;  the  way  that  men  called 
"  heresy "  was  a  way  of  worship  and  of 
service  that  led  them  more  directly  to  the 
throne  of  God.  This  is  a  task  that  awaits  us 
in  every  "  transitional  period "  ;  we  must 
accept  all  new  facts  as  fresh  revelations  of 
God's  power  and  wisdom,  and  try  to  show 
that  by  these   new  visions  the  principles  of 

98 


The  Kingdom  that  Survives 

the  older  faith  stand  out  in  larger  form  and 
clearer  light. 


3.  The  Kingdom  that  cannot  be  Moved. 

It  is  the  very  essence  of  faith  to  maintain 
that  there  is  a  kingdom  that  cannot  be  moved, 
that  there  are  spiritual  treasures  which  must 
survive  all  the  fierce  convulsions  that  shake 
the  world.  This  attitude  of  mind  is  common 
to  the  simple-minded  prophet  who  toiled  for 
the  restoration  of  the  temple,  and  to  the 
philosophic  theologian  who  explains  to  us 
why  we  can  dispense  with  all  temples.  Their 
faith,  at  the  heart  of  it,  is  essentially  the  same, 
only  the  form  is  different.  To  Haggai  the 
temple  is  central  and  immovable  ;  the  shakings 
of  the  world's  kingdom  can  only  have  the 
effect  of  enriching  God's  sanctuary.  Those 
of  us  who  believe  in  an  eternal  God  and  an 
abiding  kingdom  can  say  the  same  thing,  but 
for  us  it  means  something  different.  It  means 
that  the  God  of  the  temple  is  the  centre  of 
our  life,  and  hence  religion  is  no  longer  bound 
to  a  particular  temple.  It  means  that  the 
99 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

truth  cannot  be  destroyed,  and  what  seems 
to  be  loss  is  really  enlargement  and  enrich- 
ment. It  means,  further,  that  there  is  running 
through  history  "  an  increasing  purpose  " 
which  tends  to  break  down  barriers  and  give 
a  real  unity  to  humanity  by  the  spreading 
of  the  idea  of  one  God.  To  the  ancient 
prophets  this  unity  was  to  be  brought  about 
by  the  world's  recognition  of  the  true  God 
in  Israel.  The  temple  was  to  be  glorified  by 
becoming  a  religious  centre  not  simply  for 
Israelite  patriots  and  pilgrims  but  in  some 
sense  for  the  whole  world.^  The  ideal  of  one 
God  and  of  human  brotherhood  remains,  but 
it  is  no  longer  monopolised  by  one  city  or 
fastened  to  one  sanctuary.  It  is  the  work  of 
an  enlightened  Christianity  to  show  that  these 
ideas  do  not  evaporate,  that  these  truths  do 
not  lose  their  power  when  they  are  cut  clear 
away  from  tribal  and  sectarian  forms.  We 
must  prove  that  these  large  statements  con- 
cerning the  purity  and  freedom  of  Christian 
ideas  are  not  philosophical  abstractions  but 
our  very  life.     True,  to  live  at  this  higher 

1  See  Chapter  IL 
lOO 


The  Kingdom  that  Survives 

altitude  demands  a  stronger  faith,  but  for 
many  of  us  it  must  be  this  faith  or  none,  the 
old  narrow  tribal  views  can  no  longer  live  in 
harmony  with  the  only  conception  of  God 
that  is  possible — a  God  of  all  time  and  the 
whole  world. 

If  any  vindication  were  needed  for  the 
attempt  to  find  the  principle  in  an  ancient 
saying  and  give  it  a  wider  application,  we  can 
find  it  within  the  pages  of  the  Bible  itself. 
The  prophet  Haggai,  in  his  own  way,  believed 
that  no  shaking  can  destroy  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth,  that  the  God  of  Israel  rules 
the  world  and  makes  the  changes  in  the 
political  sphere  work  out  the  enrichment  of 
his  Church.  The  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  believes  the  same  thing  but  presents 
it  in  a  form  that  reflects  a  broader  philosophy 
of  religion.  When  we  discuss  the  question 
of  "gain  and  loss,"  and  when  the  old  truth 
has  been  so  transformed  that  we  cry  out 
"What  is  left  ?  "  we  need  to  fall  back  upon 
the  essential  Christian  belief  that  there  is  a 
Kingdom  that  cannot  be  moved,  and  that  the 
Lord  of  this  Kingdom   is  the  living  Christ, 

lOI 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

We  must  recognise  not  only  that  "  the  king- 
dom "  can  no  longer  be  exclusively  identified 
with  Jerusalem  or  Rome  but  also  that  it  is 
larger  than  any  or  all  ecclesiastical  organisa- 
tions. From  this  point  of  view  there  can  be  no 
real  "  loss  "  ;  there  may  be  loss  to  individuals 
or  particular  communities  through  their  failure 
to  assimilate  new  truth  or  rise  to  larger  oppor- 
tunity, but  because  God  is  behind  it  the  larger 
movement  must  be  a  gain  to  humanity. 

We  are  now  beginning  to  see  that  the  Bible 
has  grown  larger  and  richer  under  the  severe 
searching  study  that  earnest  scholars  have 
devoted  to  it  during  many  generations.  It 
tells  more  clearly  than  ever  the  story  of  a 
growing  revelation  of  God  meant  for  human- 
ity and  not  merely  for  one  race.  Even  when 
its  life  circled  largely  round  one  small  city 
there  were  truths  struggling  for  expression 
that  cried  out  for  the  larger  city  of  God. 
Science  has  revealed  to  us  a  larger  world  in 
which  there  can  be  only  one  God  in  whom 
''we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being." 
One  living  movement  everywhere,  one  law 
ruling  through  all  spheres  ;  this  is  the  watch- 

I02 


The  Kingdom  that  Survives 

word  of  the  higher  thought  of  our  time.  It 
puts  to  shame  all  mere  local  religions  and 
sectarian  monopolies.  It  cannot  be  content 
with  a  God  who  merely  created  some  past 
things,  It  calls  for  a  creed  that  shall  embrace  the 
whole  life  of  the  world.  The  social  problem 
presses  hard,  it  taxes  the  power  of  the  Church. 
It  sometimes  makes  us  feel  that  we  are  help- 
less In  the  face  of  forces  that  cannot  easily  be 
controlled  and  guided.  Is  this  failure  and 
death  or  Is  It  the  growing  pain  of  a  new  and 
larger  life  .?  No  one  city  can  contain,  no  one 
church  can  guide,  this  restless  movement  of 
humanity  ;  by  no  small  formula  can  this 
complex  situation  be  met.  The  rallying 
point  to-day  is  not  in  a  particular  city  or 
visible  temple  but  round  a  Person  ;  we  turn 
to  One  in  whom  great  movements  of  the  past 
have  centred  and  from  whom  new  impulse 
springs.  The  faith  that  He  quickens  in  us 
gives  us  courage  to  believe  that  there  really 
is  "a  kingdom  that  cannot  he  moved,"  an 
eternal  city  of  truth  and  righteousness  whose 
builder  and  maker  is  God.^ 

1  Heb.  xi.  10. 
103 


VII. 
THE  CITY  WITHOUT  A  WALL. 

Zechariah  IL  1-5. 

The  first  eight  chapters  of  the  book  that 
bears  the  name  of  Zechariah  forms  practically- 
one  discourse.  The  remaining  six  chapters 
belong  to  a  later  period  and  are  quite 
different  in  their  literary  character  and 
spiritual  temper ;  with  these  we  have  no 
present  concern.  The  genuine  sermon  of 
Zechariah  was  delivered,  at  the  close  of  the 
sixth  century  B.C.,  for  the  purpose  of  consoling 
the  Jewish  community  in  its  darkness  and 
distress,  and  strengthening  the  leaders  in 
the  efforts  towards  the  rebuilding  of  the 
temple.  These  different  chapters  may  be 
the  substance  of  different  discourses  given 
at  that  time,  but  they  are  now  one  sermon, 
the  aim  of  which  is  to  make  clear  that 
God  will  sustain  the  leaders  and  bless 
104 


The  City  Without  a  Wall 

the  nation.  The  prophet  may  well  have  had  in 
his  mind  the  words  of  his  great  forerunner — 

"Comfort  ye,  comfort  ye  my  people,  saith  your  God. 
Speak,  ye  comfortably  to  Jerusalem,  and  cry  unto  her, 
That    her   warfare    is    accomplished,    her    iniquity    is 

pardoned ; 
That  she  hath  received  of  Jehovah's  hand  double  for 

all  her  sins."  ^ 

He  tells  us  that  he  received  from  the  angel 
"good  and  comfortable  words"  (i.  13),  and 
that  his  own  commission  was  in  this  spirit, 
there  came  to  him  from  Jehovah  the  command 
to  cry  out  the  gracious  promise  :  "  My  cities 
through  prosperity  shall  yet  be  spread  abroad  ; 
and  the  Lord  shall  yet  comfort  Zion  and 
shall  yet  choose  Jerusalem  "  (i.  17).  He 
is  therefore,  by  the  needs  of  the  situation, 
and  by  the  divine  call,  a  son  of  consolation. 


I.  The  Popular  Presentation  of  Truth. 

The  prophet's  sermon  is  full  of  illustrations 
or    word-pictures  ;     he    speaks    in    parables. 
These  allegories  are  rich  in  suggestion  and 
1  Isa.  xl.  I,  2. 

105 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

were  likely  to  quicken  a  deeper  interest  in 
his  teaching.  But  these  features  of  the  dis- 
course which  were  the  most  attractive  then 
are  precisely  the  parts  which  now  require  the 
most  careful  study  and  the  fullest  explana- 
tion. This  man  whose  visions  have  become 
obscure,  through  the  lapse  of  time  and 
change  of  place,  could  have  dispensed  with 
oratorical  adornments  and  rhetorical  devices, 
for  he  was  certainly  a  master  of  strong,  clear 
speech.  Note  his  beautiful  promise  of  peace 
in  viii.  4,  and  his  fine  ethical  charter  of  the 
city  in  verses  16  and  17  of  the  same  chapter. 
He  did  not  use  pictures  because  he  was 
unable  to  make  clear  statements  but  because 
these  illustrations  quickened  the  imagination 
of  his  hearers  and  gave  real  satisfaction  to  his 
own  soul.  In  these  strange  visionary  forms 
promises  can  find  expression  that  are  too 
large  for  mere  formal  statement.  The 
visions  arrested  attention  and  provoked 
thought  at  the  time.  Now  they  demand 
careful  study  so  that  we  may  enter  into  the 
mode  of  thought  of  a  generation  that  has 
long  passed  away.  The  scientific  study  of 
106 


The  City   Without  a  Wall 

the  Bible,  by  which  we  seek  to  place  ourselves 
in  living  relationship  with  the  gieat  prophet, 
is  an  attempt  to  wipe  the  dust  oh'  these 
ancient  pictures  so  that  the  essential  features 
may  be  more  clearly  seen.  This  is  not  a 
mere  intellectual  discipline,  it  is  an  exercise  of 
imagination  and  an  effort  of  faith.  Surely  it 
is  one  aspect  of  "  the  communion  of  saints  " 
when  we  seek  to  pass  over  the  barriers  of 
time  and  space,  language  and  nation,  in  order 
to  appreciate  and  appropriate  the  great  truth 
uttered  by  a  noble  preacher  of  a  distant  age. 
The  popular  preacher  of  twenty-five  centuries 
ago  demands  and  justifies  scientific  study 
to-day,  and  when  we  give  that  study  in  a 
reverent  and  sympathetic  spirit  we  express 
our  faith  in  some  essential  truths.  First, 
that  in  the  world  of  spirit  as  well  as  in  that 
of  nature  the  present  grows  out  of  the  past, 
so  that,  in  so  far  as  we  lay  hold  of  God's 
growing  revelation,  we  can  claim  real  kinship 
with  the  saints  and  martyrs  of  earlier  days. 
Second,  these  great  men  who  wrestled  faith- 
fully with  the  problems  of  life  centuries  ago, 
did  really  prepare  the  way  for  us  ;  they  lifted 
107 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

their  little  life  into  the  light  of  God's  great 
kingdom  and,  in  so  doing,  laid  down,  in  a 
simple  form,  eternal  principles.  Third,  this 
being  so,  it  is  possible  for  us  without  any 
allegorising  or  straining  to  find  more  in 
their  visions  than  was  present  to  themselves, 
because  the  principle  that  they  have  discovered 
demands,  in  our  larger  world,  a  larger  applica- 
tion. Hence  the  abiding  significance  of  this 
popular  sermon. 

It  is  surely  appropriate  that  the  hopes  of 
Jerusalem  should  be  expressed  by  the  figure 
of  a  young  man.  The  young  man  has  his 
own  outlook  towards  the  future  ;  it  is  no 
sufficient  gospel  for  him  to  be  told  about 
"the  good  old  times."  Read  that  striking 
passage  Ezra  iii.  11-13,  which  tells  of  the 
strangely  mingled  sound  of  weeping  and 
rejoicing  when  those  come  together,  in  one 
festival,  whose  outlook  was  so  different ; 
some  clung  with  tears  to  the  sacred  past,  and 
others  exulted  in  the  hope  of  a  new  future. 
The  prophet  has  preached  peace  and  pros- 
perity ;  the  people  are  inclined  to  believe 
him,  but  they  say.  Tell  us  more  definitely  the 
108 


The  City  Without  a  Wall 

meaning  of  this  thing  ;  how  big  is  Jerusalem 
going  to  be  ?  The  young  are  hopeful  as  to 
the  future,  their  destiny  is  hidden  in  it,  they 
long  for  clear-cut  statements  and  well-defined 
programmes.  It  is  fitting  then  that  the 
prophet  should  symbolise  the  faith  of 
Jerusalem  by  means  of  a  young  man,  alert 
and  eager,  who  goes  forth  to  do  some  land- 
surveying  and  measure  the  boundaries  of  the 
new  city.  The  figure  expresses  faith,  an 
acceptance  of  the  promise  as  to  the  future 
greatness  of  the  city.  But  the  faith,  quick 
and  energetic  as  it  is,  is  not  large  enough,  it 
is  not  going  to  be  possible  to  lay  out  a 
definite  plan  of  the  city  because  of  the 
abundance  of  life  in  it.  The  pressure  of 
living  forces  will  be  so  great  that  the  ancient 
barriers  will  be  ignored  ;  it  will  be  a  time  of 
peace,  so  that  the  walls  can  be  dispensed  with 
and  the  presence  of  Jehovah  will  be  a  wall  of 
fire,  a  protection  and  an  inspiration  to  the 
loyal  people.  This  is  the  prophet's  reply  to 
the  demand  for  statistics.  Here  is  a  man 
who  speaks  with  confidence  in  "  the  day  of 
small  things  "  ;  he  looks  forward  with  uncon- 
109 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

querable  hope  to  a  larger,  richer  future  for 
the  city.  The  source  of  his  confidence  is 
clearly  stated  ;  it  is  that  Jehovah  will  quicken 
the  life  within  and  guard  against  all  de- 
structive forces  from  without.  It  is  because 
the  divine  life  is  the  centre  of  his  hope  that 
we  are  justified  in  giving  wider  range  and 
richer  meaning  to  his  teaching  than  at  first 
sight  seems  to  be  implied  in  his  words. 

2.  A  City  Without  a  Wall. 

Surely  there  is  a  great  boldness  of  faith  in 
the  form  in  which  he  has  chosen  to  express 
the  promise.  A  city  without  a  wall  was 
unknown  in  his  time,  and  it  is  only  in  recent 
times  that  by  the  creation  of  large  countries 
with  common  sentiments  and  interests  it  has 
become  a  literal  fact.  For  many  centuries 
the  very  idea  of  a  city  was  that  of  a  walled 
space,  the  centre  of  a  district,  where  men 
could  flee  for  refuge  when  the  enemy  scoured 
the  open  country.  Within  these  walls  were 
found  the  sanctuary  where  men  worshipped 
their  God  and  the  fortresses  where  they 
no 


The  City  Without  a  Wall 

resisted  the  last  attack  of  their  foes.  For  a 
man  to  believe  that  God  would  be  present 
with  his  people  in  such  a  living  sense  that  the 
common  material  defences  would  be  super- 
seded was  a  supreme  act  of  faith.  There  is 
splendid  audacity  in  the  thought,  but  we  are 
not  strong  enough  even  now  to  accept  it  in 
all  its  fulness.  It  is  an  ideal  which  worldly 
common  sense  regards  with  scorn  as  the  mere 
play  of  religious  fancy. 

It  is  possible  to  point  out  that  there  was 
little,  if  any,  literal  fulfilment  of  this  great 
promise.  The  Jews  continued  to  struggle 
with  wonderful  perseverance  against  the 
hard,  prosaic  difficulties  of  their  situation. 
When,  three  centuries  later,  an  effort  was 
made  to  destroy  their  sacred  books  and  crush 
their  religious  life,  the  men  of  living  faith 
and  stern  piety  rose  in  revolt  and  vindicated 
their  right  to  national  independence  and 
religious  freedom.  This  military  glory  and 
political  independence  thus  attained  lasted  for 
a  short  time  ;  it  was  followed  by  internal 
conflict  and  absorption  within  the  Roman 
Empire.  In  the  last  great  struggle  with  the 
III 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

Roman  legions  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem 
fought  with  fanatical  faith  and  frenzied  zeal, 
but  it  was  all  in  vain  ;  there  was  no  wall  of 
fire  to  protect  the  city  and  devour  the  enemy. 
The  Jew  then  became,  in  the  fullest  sense, 
"  a  man  without  a  country  "  ;  since  then  he 
has  wandered  over  the  world  and  in  many 
lands,  has  been  the  object  of  enmity  or  con- 
tempt. It  appears,  then,  that  the  vision  of 
the  city  without  a  wall  is  the  dream  of  a 
religious  enthusiast,  and  that  the  Jew  has 
received  as  his  portion  not  permanent  peace 
but  continual  torment — a  torment  largely 
accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  he  has  clung 
with  such  unswerving  loyalty  to  the  peculiar 
forms  of  his  own  faith  and  law.  Is  this, 
however,  a  full  account  of  this  great  matter  ? 
Is  there  not  a  permanent  truth  in  the  thought 
that  the  strength  and  security  of  a  community 
is  found  in  the  faith  that  unites  it  to  God 
and  not  in  the  wall  that  separates  it  from 
mankind  ?  There  were  times  when  the  Jews 
trusted  in  the  wall  rather  than  in  their  God. 
In  those  days  a  strong  wall  was  a  great 
defence  for  a  well-placed  city,  and  men  were 

112 


The  City  Without  a  Wall 

slow  in  learning  that  there  is  a  nobler  defence 
in  an  intelligent  service  of  God  and  a 
sympathetic  treatment  of  each  other.  In 
other  words,  it  is  very  slowly  that  men  have 
learned  this  great  truth,  grasped  what  we 
may  call  this  great  missionary  idea,  that  the 
presence  of  God,  in  so  far  as  it  is  truly  and 
intelligently  realised,  tends  to  unite  men  rather 
than  separate  them  ;  the  divine  fire  which 
protects  the  righteous  breaks  down  the  hard 
material  barriers  which  have  served  their 
purpose  and  had  their  day. 

3.  The  Extension  of  the  Idea. 

Because  the  prophet  was  what  we  call  "  a 
spiritually  minded  man,"  because  the  chief 
thought  for  him  was  the  presence  of  God  and 
not  the  material  greatness  or  numerical  power 
of  the  city,  we  may  justly  credit  him  with  the 
idea  that  the  presence  of  God  is  a  power  that 
breaks  down  the  old  barriers  so  that  the  life 
of  "  the  city  of  God  "  may  stream  forth  upon 
the  world.  Translated  Into  these  terms  we 
can  see  that  the  later  history  of  Judaism  and 
H  113 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

the  growth  of  Christianity  has  been  an  advance 
along  this  line  and  so  a  fulfilment  of  the 
prophecy. 

The  Jews  were  forced  out  into  the  great 
world,  and  wherever  they  went  carried  their 
religion  with  them  ;  and  notwithstanding 
their  hard  legalism  and  exclusive  temper  the 
nobility  and  attraction  of  that  religion  mani- 
fested itself.  The  patriotic  saintly  men 
scattered  through  foreign  lands  thought  with 
tenderness  of  Jerusalem  as  the  city  of  their 
God  and  the  home  of  their  religion,  but 
many  of  them  began  to  realise  that  the  true 
Zion  is  not  the  soil  or  the  walls  of  an  earthly 
city  but  the  living  truth,  the  glorious  reve- 
lation from  God.  From  this  point  of  view, 
the  prophecy  received  a  very  real  fulfilment, 
Jerusalem  did  indeed  break  its  barriers  ;  the 
life  inspired  by  prophets  and  regulated  by  law- 
givers overspread  the  world,  and  became  one 
of  the  most  important  factors  in  its  religious 
life.  Churches  and  sects  may  struggle,  as 
they  do  to-day,  for  the  soil  of  the  ancient 
city,  fighting  with  vulgar  fanaticism  for  "  the 
sacred  places,"  but  the  city  of  God,  "  Jeru- 
114 


The  City  Without  a  Wall 

salem  the  golden/'  is  otherwhere,  it  is  found 
wherever  men  are  fighting  for  true  liberty, 
personal  purity,  and  social  righteousness. 

Monopoly  has  been  tried  both  in  Judaism 
and  Christianity  ;  the  attempt  has  been  made 
to  prove  that  the  city  of  God  is  a  walled  city, 
a  national  or  ecclesiastical  enclosure.  The 
effort  to  make  all  pious  souls  conform  to  one 
type  of  worship  and  creed  has  been  a  ghastly 
failure.  It  is  one  feature  in  the  history  of 
the  Christian  Church  that  fills  us  with  shame 
and  that  justifies  the  unbeliever's  sharpest 
criticism.  Coercion  and  monopoly  are  the 
weapons  not  of  faith  but  of  unbelief.  The 
proud  Church  that  claims  to  have  the  exclusive 
right  to  "  the  keys  "  of  the  city  is  doing  her 
best  work  where  she  has  to  live  in  the  light 
and  face  honest  competition.  In  that  case, 
as  elsewhere,  exclusiveness  means  arrogance, 
and  monopoly  leads  to  rottenness.  If  any 
church  could  build  a  high  wall  and  keep  out 
all  kinds  of  "  modernism,"  all  problems  that 
come  from  the  conflict  of  new  ideas  and 
foreign  forces,  the  result  would  not  be  a  city 
but  a  cemetery,  a  beautiful  place  for  dead 
IIS 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

bones  to  rest,  but  a  poor  substitute  for  the 
real  movement  of  healthy  life.  When  men 
think  that  they  have  made  a  city  of  God  of 
their  own,  with  properly  designed  walls,  so 
that  they  can  confine  and  control  the  great 
revelation,  dispensing  it  to  men  with  a  kindly, 
patronising  air,  then  they  stand  before  the 
world  as  the  supreme  representative  of 
Christianity.  This  is  all  very  grand  in 
appearance  and  when  represented  in  noble 
forms  of  architecture  and  oratory,  but  the  fact 
remains  that  it  is  only  the  small  things  that 
can  be  imprisoned  in  sectarian  bonds,  how- 
ever beautiful  these  may  be.  God  is  every- 
where, thought  is  free  ;  the  essential  condition 
of  liberty  is  the  revelation  of  this  Divine 
presence  that  gives  meaning  to  the  life  of 
humanity. 

Here  we  have  gained  a  principle  that  is 
true  everywhere  and  at  all  times,  though  the 
revelation  of  it  has  been  painfully  slow  and 
gradual.  Where  God  is,  there  and  there 
only  is  real  liberty.  Such  a  presence  of  God 
is  now  possible  anywhere,  being  dependent 
on  the  state  of  the  soul  not  the  situation  of 
ii6 


The  City  Without  a  Wall 

the  soil.  If  this  presence  is  really  working 
in  any  city  and  nation,  as  it  was  in  Jerusalem 
and  among  the  Jews,  a  missionary  idea  will 
grow  there  even  in  unconscious  forms,  that  is, 
there  will  be  a  conviction  that  there  is  some- 
thing that  the  world  needs  and  desires 
because  it  is  something  that  comes  from  the 
Supreme  God.  The  formal  missionary 
organisation  comes  later  ;  it  must  be  pre- 
ceded by  a  life  that  has  in  it  a  consciousness 
of  Divinity  and  so  carries  with  it  a  claim  to 
universality.  Within  the  walls  of  sect  and 
nation  the  seed  has  been  planted,  but  if  it  is 
really  the  tree  of  life  whose  "leaves  are  for 
the  healing  of  the  nations,"  ^  it  will  burst  all 
narrow  enclosures  and  claim  kinship  with  the 
untrammelled  creative  forces. 

In  the  personal  life,  too,  this  principle  has 
its  application.  We  marvel  sometimes  at 
the  freedom  of  our  Lord  Jesus,  at  His 
determination  to  recognise  no  law  or  etiquette 
which  would  cut  Him  ofF  from  humanity. 
He  does  not  engage  in  "  foreign  missionary 
work  "  in  the  formal  sense,  but  He  embodies 
1  Rev.  xxii.  2. 

117 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

in  His  life  principles  which  lie  behind  all 
true  mission  work.  For  Him  God  is  Father, 
men  are  brothers,  and  the  city  of  God  is 
neither  in  "  this  mountain "  nor  yet  in 
Jerusalem,^  but  where  there  is  a  spirit  seek- 
ing the  truth  ;  His  disciples  may  have  sought 
to  embody  these  ideas  more  fully  in  creeds 
and  churches,  but  in  Him  they  find  a  living 
expression.  Because  the  fire  of  the  Divine 
presence  was  fully  realised  in  Him,  He  was 
the  perfect  citizen  of  "the  city  without  a 
wall,"  and,  being   its  perfect  citizen,  He  was 


also  its  King. 


1  John  iv.  21. 


ii8 


VIII. 
THE  FINAL  FESTIVAL. 

Isaiah  XXV.  6-8. 

As  an  introduction  to  this  noble  poem,  we 
have  the  story  of  a  marginal  note  and  its 
destiny.  We  need  to  remember  that  our 
Old  Testament  comes  down  to  us  from  a 
time  when  books  in  our  sense  did  not  exist  ; 
the  written  record  was  then  preserved  on 
bricks  or  skins,  "  the  roll  of  the  book  "  ^  had 
to  be  painfully  made  and  copied  by  hand. 
It  was  much  more  difficult  then  than  now  to 
reproduce  the  copy  with  perfect  accuracy,  and 
it  was  not  until  a  late  date  that  this  became  a 
sacred  duty.  The  careful  scribe  loved  and 
respected  the  literature  to  which  so  much  toil 
had  been  given  and  desired  to  render  it 
accurately,  but  he  was  not,  at  first,  a  slave  to 
the  letter.     Words  rendered  dim  by  time  or 

1  Ps.  xl.  7. 
119 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

illegible  through  rough  usage  had  to  be 
restored,  and  explanatory  notes  made  in  the 
margin  were,  in  some  cases,  carried  into  the 
text.  Illustrations  or  demonstrations  of  this 
need  not  now  be  attempted,  but  the  "  gloss  " 
or  marginal  note  supposed  to  be  contained  in 
this  poem  is  worthy  of  a  little  attention. 
The  sentence  "  He  will  swallow  up  death  in 
victory  "  or,  as  the  R.V.  has  it  more  correctly, 
"  He  hath  swallowed  up  death  for  ever  "  is 
regarded  by  many  careful  scholars  as  just 
such  an  explanatory  note.  It  interrupts  the 
thought ;  it  separates  the  two  elements  of  a 
beautiful  figure  and  seems  to  be  awkward 
from  the  metrical  point  of  view.  If  this  is 
true,  see  what  an  interesting  light  it  throws 
upon  the  written  word.  A  devout  student  is 
poring  reverently  over  the  sacred  page  and 
meditating  upon  the  meaning  of  this  noble 
picture  of  future  blessedness.  He  perhaps 
has  suffered  a  heavy  loss,  and  thinks  that  in 
the  great  day  of  the  fuller  revelation  Jehovah 
will  destroy  the  power  of  death  which  causes 
such  sad  havoc  in  this  world.  This  God- 
given  thought  he  writes  in  the  margin  of  his 

I20 


The  Final  Festival 

copy,  and  a  later  scribe  treats  it  as  part  of  the 
original  text  that  had  been  accidentally  omitted. 
When  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  comes  to 
write  his  vindication  of  the  Christian  hope, 
he  thinks  of  this  passage,  seizes  this 
particular  phrase,  and  gives  it  an  even  nobler 
setting  and  wider  scope,  when  he  cries, 
"Then  shall  come  to  pass  the  saying  that 
is  written.  Death  is  swallowed  up  in 
victory."^  Truly  no  great  word  is  lost, 
it  finds  its  place  and  does  its  work. 

I.  The  Universality  of  Sorrow. 

Here  is  a  promise  that  Jehovah  will 
destroy  "the  face  of  the  covering  that  is 
cast  over  all  peoples,  and  the  veil  that  is 
spread  over  all  nations."  The  reference  that 
is  given  in  the  margin  of  our  Bible  would 
lead  us  to  think  of  a  veil  of  ignorance  or 
prejudice  which  hinders  men  from  seeing  the 
beauty  and  discerning  the  real  meaning  of 
God's  revelation.^  But  this  does  not  seem 
to  be  the  right  line  ;  rather  we  have  a  beauti- 

1  I  Cor.  XV.  54.  2  2  Cor.  iii.  15. 

121 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

ful  figure,  a  personification  of  the  nations, 
under  the  form  of  a  sorrowful  woman. 
Jehovah,  as  father  or  husband,  draws  near  to 
invite  her  to  the  festival  ;  he  lifts  the  veil 
and  lo,  there  are  tears.  How  can  one  come  to 
the  festival  with  weeping  eyes  or  tear-stained 
face  ?  As  a  preparation  for  the  joyful  feast 
God  must  wipe  away  all  tears  from  her  eyes.^ 
There  are  many  passages  that  speak  of  the 
rebuke  of  sinners  and  the  destruction  of  sin  ; 
here  we  have  one  that,  in  picturesque  poetic 
fashion,  tells  of  the  conquest  of  sorrow. 

This  statement  affirms  the  reality  of 
sorrow  and  the  power  and  purpose  of  God 
to  conquer  it.  The  poet,  no  doubt,  speaks 
out  of  his  own  life,  but  he  certainly  sets  his 
bright  picture  over  against  the  sombre  back- 
ground of  his  nation's  experience.  The 
history  of  Israel  is  very  largely  a  story  of 
sorrow  and  disappointment ;  it  had  its  calm 
hours,  its  days  of  simple  joy,  its  moments  of 
national  triumph,  but  there  were  periods  of 
terrible  calamity  and  heart-rending  dis- 
appointment.    The  power  to  write  enduring 

1  Rev.  xxi.  4. 
122 


The   Final  Festival 

psalms  of  penitence  and  minister  sympathy 
to  a  sorrowful  world  was  purchased  at  a 
great  cost.  The  great  nations  of  the  world 
that  have  rendered  the  highest  service  to 
humanity  have  themselves  wrestled  with  the 
problem  of  life  and  faced  the  mystery  of 
sorrow.  This  is  pre-eminently  true  of 
God's  servant,  Israel.  In  acquiring  the  great 
revelation  and  in  holding  it  fast,  this  nation 
has  suffered  from  division  within  and  perse- 
cution without.  The  sweetest  "  songs  of 
Zion  "  owe  much  of  their  pure  quality  to 
the  discipline  of  sorrow. 

Sorrow  is  a  real  thing,  we  need  all  the 
power  of  God  to  cope  with  it  and  take  the 
sting  out  of  it.  In  our  day  there  are  those 
who  claim  to  have  "  new  thought,"  a  phil- 
osophy that  preaches  the  unreality  of  sorrow. 
The  phrase  is  not  strictly  correct.  We  have 
a  knowledge  of  new  facts,  new  thoughts  are 
suggested  by  these,  and  our  great  systems  of 
science  and  philosophy  are  modified.  But 
we  have  no  new  type  of  thought.  The  ultra- 
spiritual  philosophy  that  resolves  all  pain 
and  evil  into  something  unreal  or  imaginary 
123 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

is  not  by  any  means  modern,  it  may  be 
found,  in  its  most  radical  forms,  in  ancient 
India.  The  Hebrew  religion,  however,  was 
sober,  it  had  a  firm  grip  of  mother  earth,  it 
did  not  fall  into  a  false  spiritualism  or  lose 
itself  in  the  morass  of  a  spurious  mysticism. 
Even  if  it  did  not  attain  to  the  more  ethereal 
forms  of  refinement  it  has  still  its  part  to 
play.  It  teaches  us  to  face  sorrow  in  the 
name  of  God.  Suicide  is  a  confession  of 
defeat  and  a  counsel  of  despair ;  earthly 
stimulants  cannot  minister  to  a  mind  diseased, 
they  only  aggravate  the  malady  ;  man's  need 
is  the  need  of  God  to  wipe  the  tears  from 
his  eyes  and  give  a  sacrificial  power  to  pain. 

The  universality  of  sorrow  is  here  taken 
for  granted  ;  the  promise  comes  to  a  sorrow- 
ful world,  and  the  Jew  can  claim  no 
monopoly  of  sorrow.  Pain,  bereavement, 
disappointment,  these  are  indeed  touches  of 
nature  that  make  the  whole  world  kin.  It 
is  well  to  feel  our  community  of  life  in  this 
sad  region,  for  it  may  help  to  break  down 
useless  barriers  in  other  directions.  One 
may  say  justly  that  this  is  only  a  mood  ;  it 
124 


The  Final   Festival 

does  not  represent  the  whole  of  human  life. 
True,  but  it  is  a  mood  that  corresponds  to 
an  actual  phase  of  life,  it  is  not  morbid 
irritability  or  gloomy  exaggeration.  We 
would  not  ignore  the  advance  of  science 
or  undervalue  the  resources  of  civilisation, 
but  we  can  understand  men  who,  in  moments 
of  despondency,  declare  that  very  little  im- 
pression has  been  made  on  the  great  mass  of 
human  suffering  and  that  the  burden  and 
mystery  of  it  all  presses  with  crushing  weight 
on  their  souls.  Civilisation,  they  say,  has 
not  conquered  the  ills  of  humanity  but  only 
changed  many  of  them  into  more  refined 
forms  of  torture.  That  is  a  great  subject 
not  to  be  explored  at  this  point,  as  we  are 
concerned  with  the  universality  of  the  sorrow 
which  serves  as  a  basis  for  the  great  promises. 
There  are  times  when  both  the  individual 
and  the  nation  can  say — 

"  Behold,  and  see  if  there  be  any  sorrow  like  unto  my 
sorrow,  which  is  done  unto  me."  ^ 

A  great  sorrow  always  brings  with  it  a  sense 
^  Lam.  i.  12. 

125 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

of  isolation,  it  separates  us  from  men,  and  it 
has  often  been  taken  to  mean  "  the  curse  of 
God."  It  is  then  a  part  of  the  growing 
missionary  idea  to  recognise  that  the  sorrow 
which  calls  for  divine  help  and  sympathy  is 
not  a  sectarian  thing  ;  here  at  least  there  is 
proof  of  the  oneness  of  humanity.  Differ- 
ences of  race,  language,  and  creed  cannot  hide 
the  real  sameness  of  human  life  ;  physical 
pain,  mental  torture,  and  spiritual  anguish  are 
substantially  the  same  in  all  lands  and  among 
all  classes.  In  whatever  way  we  may  state 
this,  it  is  at  the  basis  of  our  common 
sympathy  and  our  efforts  after  mutual 
helpfulness. 

2.  The  Universality  of  the  Promise. 

The  Lord  of  hosts  is  to  prepare  this  feast 
for  "  all  peoples "  and  the  tears  are  to  be 
wiped  "  from  off  all  faces."  Unlike  some 
other  pictures  of  the  future  victory,  the 
consolation  is  not  confined  to  the  Jews,  it  is 
a  festival  for  all  those  stricken  by  sorrow. 
The  form  in  which  the  promise  comes  may 
126 


The   Final   Festival 

seem  to  many  of  us  to  be  primitive  and 
child-like,  it  is  to  be  a  feast  of  fat,  sweet, 
stimulating  things.  Those  who  are  accus- 
tomed to  generous  living  every  day  can 
scarcely  feel  the  power  of  this  appeal  in  its 
literal  sense.  It  is  those  who  know  hunger 
who  can  appreciate  most  keenly  the  promise 
of  the  feast.  Those  ancient  peoples,  as  a 
rule,  did  live  the  simple  life  ;  their  life  was 
hard  and  their  fare  plain  ;  it  was  rarely  that 
luscious  meat  and  sparkling  wine  formed 
part  of  the  meal.  Such  luxuries  were 
reserved  for  great  festive  days  when  men 
rejoiced  before  God  and  with  each  other. 
Addressed  to  such  a  people  the  figure  was 
natural,  and  we  can  understand  why  it  has 
played  a  powerful  part  in  the  poetic  descrip- 
tions of  future  blessedness.  The  future  was 
to  them  the  present  purified  and  glorified, 
not  some  shadowy,  ethereal  reflection  of  it.^ 

Literal  hunger  still  appears  among  the 
pains  of  life,  so  that  there  are  many  to  whom 
these  figures  appeal  mightily  ;  and  even  in 
respectable   well-fed  congregations  there  are 

1  Isa.  Iv.  2  J  John  iv.  lo  ;  Pvcv.  xxi.  6  ;  xxii.  17  ;  etc. 
127 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

hungry  hearts,  there  are  men  and  women 
who  know  that  it  is  possible  to  have  plenty 
and  yet  be  sore  at  heart  and  empty  in  soul. 
These  hearts  desire  to  take  hold  of  some 
great  promise  that  shall  lift  them  out  of 
weariness  and  quicken  in  them  a  new  spirit 
of  hope.  Men  who  have  needs  that  money 
cannot  satisfy  and  who  have  lost  the  power 
to  enjoy  the  simple  things  of  life,  to  these 
also  the  promise  comes  that  life  may  be 
made  new,  the  zest  and  joy  of  it  restored. 

The  glory  of  the  Old  Testament  religion 
is  in  this  clear  strong  faith  for  the  future. 
In  later  times  something  of  hardness  and 
stagnation  came  to  it,  but  with  the  prophets 
and  poets  of  our  sacred  books  it  was  vital, 
flexible,  refusing  to  be  crushed  by  disappoint- 
ments. Through  the  blinding  tears  the 
glory  of  the  future  is  dimly  seen,  but  there 
is  faith  that  God  will  wipe  away  the  tears 
and  the  vision  dawn  in  all  its  splendour. 
The  Old  Testament  and  the  religion  that  it 
expressed  was  the  result  of  a  growth  stimu- 
lated by  the  Divine  Spirit  and  revealed  in 
the  lives  of  noble  men.  The  hard  crust  of 
128 


The   Final   Festival 

custom  was  often  broken  and  fresh  sources 
of  blessing  allowed  to  rush  up  from  God's 
living  springs.  The  prophetic  movement 
was  always  moving  forward,  never  content 
with  the  past.  If  there  was,  in  the  popular 
religion,  any  remains  of  that  ancestor  worship 
which  tended  to  lay  the  dead  hand  of  the 
past  too  heavily  upon  the  living  generations, 
the  prophets  conquered  this  by  their  insistent 
preaching  of  a  living,  present  God  who  makes 
new  demands  of  faith  and  duty  upon  His 
people.  Reverence  for  parents  and  elders 
is  still  enjoined  and  continues  to  be  a  noble 
element  in  all  true  religion,  but  the  spontane- 
ous life  of  the  prophets  would  not  brook 
bondage  from  the  dead  past,  though  they 
enlarged  its  living  tradition. 

Thus  the  religion  has  ever  a  forward  look, 
straining  its  eager  gaze  towards  a  richer 
future  and  always  expecting  some  nobler 
thing  from  God.  Both  in  its  perfection  and 
its  imperfection  such  a  religion  is  prophetic  ; 
the  beauty  of  the  bud  is  a  promise  of  the 
richer  fulness  and  fragrance  of  the  flower. 
We  admire,  with  reverence,  the  many  forms 
I  129 


The  Song  and  the   Soil 

of  faith  that  appear  in  this  great  literature  ; 
we  find  them  heroic  and  sublime,  in  their 
own  way,  approaching  perfection,  but  we 
have  to  recognise  that  often  they  are  put  in 
a  form  that  we  must  regard  as  local  and 
limited,  a  form  that  in  the  light  of  the  later 
revelation  is  imperfect.  But  we  must 
reiterate  the  statement  that  there  is  a  pro- 
phetic element  on  both  sides.  This  rests 
upon  our  belief  that  God  is  behind  the  whole 
movement ;  He  is  present  in  strength  ;  and 
the  imperfection  is  a  cry  to  Him  for  more 
light,  an  appeal  to  remove  the  limitation  and 
give  to  His  truth  the  freedom  of  the  world. 

3.  The  Limitation  of  a  Great  Idea. 

In  this  poem  we  have  the  bright  hope  for 
the  future  assuming  a  missionary  form,  com- 
prehending in  a  sympathetic  spirit  all  the 
sorrowful  nations  of  the  world,  but  there  is 
a  condition  attached  which  shows  that,  as  we 
might  expect,  the  national  spirit  is  not  yet 
left  behind.  Althouorh  the  thoug-ht  is  not 
elaborated  here  it  is  clearly  present  that  the 
130 


The  Final  Festival 

Jew  IS  to  maintain  his  superiority,  to  this 
extent  at  least,  that  his  city  is  to  become  the 
city  of  God.  "  In  this  mountain  shall  Jehovah 
of  hosts  make  unto  all  peoples  a  feast  of  fat 
things."  It  is  a  great  claim,  a  magnificent 
aspiration,  that  the  universal  need  shall  be 
met  in  this  one  city,  that  Jerusalem  shall  be 
not  only  the  honoured  sanctuary  of  Judaism 
but  also  the  centre  of  light  and  healing  for 
the  world.^  We  are  prepared  to  interpret 
this  in  a  sympathetic  spirit,  to  pay  the  just 
tribute  to  the  wonderful  history  of  this  city 
and  acknowledge  the  great  things  that  have 
come  out  of  it,  but  we  have  to  declare  that  in 
this  precise  form  the  prophecy  cannot  be 
fulfilled,  that  no  one  city  can  monopolise  the 
Divine  ministries.  There  is  great  import- 
ance to  be  attached  to  the  attractive  power  of 
religion  which  draws  willing  pilgrims  to  its 
source  and  centre,  but  this  power  must  go 
forth  into  the  wide  world  and  take  to  itself 
varied  and  changing  forms.^ 

The  contrast  between  the  actual  and  the 
ideal  Jerusalem  is  striking,  in  fact  we  may 
1  See  also  pp.  30,  65,  76.      2  jga.  ii.  i-^  j  and  xlii.  1-4. 

131 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

say,  without  straining  the  expression,  that  it  is 
tragic.  Jerusalem  did  remain  for  some  time 
after  this  poem  was  written  the  centre  of 
Jewish  religion,  the  place  towards  which  the 
scattered  patriots  could  look  with  reverent 
aspiration  and  cry,  "  I  was  glad  when  they 
said  unto  me  let  us  go  into  the  house  of 
Jehovah.'*  Even  then,  while  the  temple  was 
standing,  pilgrims  of  other  lands  and  races 
came  to  pay  their  tribute  of  praise  to  the  God 
of  Israel.  But  it  has  been  for  long  a  desola- 
tion, for  the  Jew  a  symbol  of  shame  and 
national  failure.  It  is  now  a  sacred  city  to 
the  people  of  three  religions,  but  its  life  is 
marred  by  the  vulgar  quarrels  of  contending 
sects.  When  fanatics  fight  and  blood  is 
shed  on  account  of  its  "holy  places,"  it 
seems  that  within  its  gates  the  principles  of 
spiritual  religion  are  ignored  and  the  Christ 
crucified  afresh.  How  sordid  and  sensational 
all  this  appears  to  be  when  it  is  lifted  into 
the  light  of  pure  prophetic  teaching  !  In  the 
Christian  vocabulary,  Jerusalem  means  some- 
thing quite  different ;  the  name  has  been 
raised  into  another  atmosphere  and  speaks  of 
132 


The  Final   Festival 

the  ideal  city  of  God,  "  Jerusalem  the  golden/* 
the  home  of  all  the  saints  ;  or  it  prophesies  of 
heaven,  the  celestial  city  of  the  deathless  future. 

But  whatever  form  our  faith  in  the  future 
may  take,  we  see  clearly  that  no  city  on  earth 
can,  in  the  spiritual  sense,  rule  the  world. 
Jerusalem,  Rome,  Geneva,  Canterbury,  these 
and  other  famous  shrines,  centres  of  ancient 
religion  or  reforming  zeal,  have  their  historic 
interest,  but  the  truth  is  larger  than  any  or  all 
of  them.  Never  again  on  an  immense  scale 
can  the  attempt  at  uniformity  and  centralisa- 
tion be  made  with  any  prospect  of  real 
success.  Monopoly  must  confine  itself  to 
places  that  are  off  the  main  track  of  the 
world's  life.  "  This  mountain  "  may  appeal 
to  our  reverence  because  of  its  past,  but  never 
again  can  it  dominate  the  life  of  mankind. 
We  are  not  called  to  lose  all  local  colour  and 
attractive  traditions  in  dim,  theological  abstrac- 
tions, but  we  must  have  a  religion  that  can 
create  new  homes  for  itself  and  that  can  bring 
the  promise  of  the  Father's  presence  in  all 
times  and  places. 

Even  a  crude  faith  is  better  than  hopeless 
^33 


The  Song  and  the  Soil 

scepticism.  The  essential  thing  is  that  re- 
ligion must  not  lose  its  true  catholicity  ;  it 
must  claim  to  meet  and  conquer  the  common 
sorrow.  It  must  maintain  its  forward  look, 
its  faith  in  the  possibility  of  new  and  glorious 
revelation.  The  old  faith  may  be  translated 
into  permanent  forms.  There  is  the  hope  of 
national  success  ;  this  may  be  taken  to  mean 
not  mere  material  prosperity,  but  success  in 
solving  the  problem  of  social  life  in  such  a 
way  as  to  give  a  chance  at  life's  feast  to  those 
who  are  poor  and  weak.  The  nation  that 
cares  for  its  own  in  the  noblest  sense,  realis- 
ing the  spirit  of  brotherhood,  will,  by  the 
very  fact,  be  a  missionary  nation.^  Then 
there  is  the  hope  of  personal  immortality  ; 
this  has  come  to  us  in  the  teaching  of  the 
greatest  saints  and  in  the  life  of  our  Lord  ; 
we  cannot  surrender  it  without  severe  loss. 
But  with  this  there  must  be  the  conviction 
that  the  banquet  is  spread  for  us  here  and 
now,  that  the  realisation  of  communion 
with  God  in  the  present  is  our  source  of 
satisfaction  and  our  basis  of  hope.^  Heaven 
iCf.  p.  35.  2  Ps.  Ixxiii.  25. 

134 


The   Final   Festival 

is  not  a  mechanical  compensation  for  pain 
and  loss  here,  it  is  the  "eternal  life  "  revealed 
through  communion  with  God  and  rising 
into  its  own  sphere  to  fulfil  its  own  destiny. 

<' Things  which    eye  saw  not,  and    ear   heard  not,  and 
which  entered  not  into  the  heart  of  man, 
Whatsoever  things  God  prepared 
For  them  that  love  him."  ^ 

1  Isa.  Ixiv.  4;   I  Cor.  ii.  11. 


135 


APPENDIX. 


SOME  ADDITIONAL  READING. 

In  these  expositions  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  show  that  while  Judaism  did  not 
become,  in  a  formal  sense,  a  missionary 
religion,  yet  in  the  Old  Testament  literature 
as  it  now  lies  before  us,  we  can  discern  a 
movement  towards  universalism  which  after- 
wards found  fuller  expression  in  Christianity. 
In  discourses  of  this  nature  there  must  neces- 
sarily be  more  repetition  and  less  methodical 
treatment  than  in  an  essay  or  scientific  mono- 
graph. But  it  is  hoped  that  even  in  this 
popular  presentation  certain  essential  features 
of  this  great  hope  have  been  made  prominent, 
and,  without  undue  strain,  appropriate  lessons 
which  may  be  applied  to  our  own  religious 
and  social  life.  It  is  difficult  to  give  a  bibli- 
ography of  such  a  subject, as  it  is  mostly  treated 
in  an  incidental  manner  in  books  on  history 
and  theology  or  in  commentaries  dealing  with 
the  particular  passages. 

In  1896  there  was  published  a  lecture  by 
137 


Appendix 

Max  Lohr  {Der  Missionsgedanke  im  Alten 
Testament)  which  sought  to  give  a  brief 
scientific  statement  of  the  subject.  Professor 
Lohr's  position  may  be  seen  from  the  quota- 
tion already  given  at  p.  viii.  He  quotes 
Noldeke  to  the  effect  that  cosmopolitanism, 
something  like  our  missionary  thought,  which 
is  inseparable  from  Christianity,  could  only 
gain  strength  when  Semitic  and  Hellenic 
thought  had  begun  to  mingle.  He  finds  in 
such  passages  as  Jer.  xii.  i4f.  ;  xvi.  19,  the 
first  sure  appearance  of  the  missionary 
idea.  The  texts  expounded  in  the  course 
of  his  study  are  drawn  very  largely  from 
Isaiah  and  the  Psalter. 

It  was  not  possible  within  the  compass  of 
this  volume  to  discuss  such  related  subjects 
as  the  temper  of  the  Book  of  Esther,  and  the 
eschatology  of  Ezekiel  and  later  prophets. 
The  whole  question  of  the  relation  of  Hebrews 
to  foreigners  is  dealt  with,  in  an  able  manner, 
by  Prof.  A.  Bertholet  {Die  Stellung  der  Israel- 
iten  und  der  Juden  zu  den  Fremden^  1896). 

Besides  the  regular  histories  and  commen- 
taries, the  following  easily-accessible  books 
may  also  be  consulted  : — 

Israel  among  the  Nations^  by  P.  Leroy 
Beaulieu. 

138 


Appendix 

Politics   and  Religion  in  Ancient  Israel^ 

by  J.  C.  Todd. 
The    Exile  and  the   Restoration^  by  Dr. 

A.  B.  Davidson. 
After  the  Exile^  by  P.  Hay  Hunter. 
The  Book  of  Isaiahy  by  C.  H.  Box. 
The  Messages  of  the    Psalmists,  by  Dr. 

J.  E.  McFadyen. 
Prophetic  Ideas  and  Ideals y  by  Dr.  W.  G. 

Jordan. 
The    Bible   as    a    Missionary    Book,    by 

Dr.  R.  F.  Horton. 

On  the  history  of  Jerusalem  and  its  place 
in  the  life  of  the  nation,  Dr.  Geo.  A.  Smith's 
two  volumes  are  of  first-class  interest  and 
importance.  The  quotation  on  p.  6i  is 
from  a  booklet  on  The  History  of  lerusa/emy 
by  Dr.  J.  E.  Lee  of  St.  Louis,  U.S.A. 


139 


INDEX. 


A.    SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES. 


PAGE 

PAGE 

Gen.  ii.  3     . 

67 

Isa.  XXV.  6-8 

.        119 

„     xii.  3   . 

24 

„   xl.  If.. 

.        105 

Ex.  XX.  lo,  II 

67 

„  xl.  8       .         . 

10 

Deut.  V.  14,  15 

67 

„  xl.  26     . 

55,82 

„     viii.     . 

43 

,,  xlii.  1-4          .        4 

0,    131 

„     viii.  3. 

.       27 

„  xlii.  4    . 

.       47 

„     XI.  19  . 

51 

,,  xlii.  6     . 

.       39 

Judg.  iii.  10. 

48 

,,  xliii.  10. 

39 

„     xi.  24  . 

.       25 

,,  xlv.  22  . 

55 

,,     xiv.  6  . 

.       48 

„  xlvii.  13 

82 

I  Sam.  X.  10 

48 

„  xlix.  I    . 

.      44 

,,      xix.  20 

48 

,,  xlix.  1-6 

40 

„      xxvi.  19     . 

25 

,,  xlix.  4    . 

53 

2  Sam.  vii.  8-16   . 

90 

,,  xlix.  I4ff. 

72 

I  Kings  xix.  12      . 

50 

,,  xlix.  23  . 

78 

2  Kings  ii.  9 

48 

„  1.  4-9     . 

40 

Ezra  iii.  11-13 

108 

„  Hi.  Iff..         . 

72 

Esther  . 

137 

„  Iii.  13  ;  liii.  12 

40 

Job  iv.  8 

4 

„  Hii.  5      . 

44 

,,  V.  13 

4 

„  liv.  1-7  . 

72 

Psalter . 

3 

„  Iv.  2       . 

127 

Ps.  xxxix.  9 

15 

M  Iv.  3,  4  . 

90 

„  xl.  7 

*.        8 

9,  "9 

„  Ivi.  7      . 

94 

„  xlii.  2 

•      71 

,,  Iviii.  6   . 

67 

,,  xlviii.  2 

76 

„  Ix.  I  f.    .         .         . 

72 

..  Ii.  17 

12 

„   Ix.  2        . 

88 

Isa.  i.  17       . 

26 

„  Ix.  17  f.. 

74 

„  ii.  2-4 

18 

,,  Ixi.  5      •         .         . 

78 

„  iv.  2-6 

22 

„  Ixiv.  4    . 

135 

»  V.  1-7 

19 

,,  Ixvi.  II,  12     . 

72 

„  vi. 

22 

Jer.  xii.  14  f. 

137 

.,  vu.  9 

20 

„    xvi.  19  . 

137 

„  xi.  2 

47 

,,    xxvi.  18 

TO 

„  xxiv-xxv 

ii. 

22 

Lam.  i.  12    . 

123 

141 


Index 


PAGE 

PAGE 

Ezekiel 

137 

John  iv.  21  .         .       57,  118 

Hos.  ii.  15-16 

82 

,,    vi.  67  . 

53 

,,    vi.  6     . 

26 

Acts  viii.  27 . 

93 

Amos  V.  II,  24 

26 

,,    xvii.  24          . 

71 

Jonah  . 

44 

I  Cor.  iii.  19 

4 

„     iii.  9,  10 

45 

„      XV.  54 

121 

,,     iv.  II  . 

46 

2  Cor.  iii.  15 

121 

Micah  iii.  12          [ 

19 

Gal.  iv.  26    . 

64 

„     iv.  1-4 

18 

„    vi.  7,8.         . 

4 

„     vi.  8  . 

.      77 

Heb.  X.  7      . 

89 

Zech.  i.  14    . 

.     105 

,,     xi.  10  . 

'2^ 

„     i.  17    . 

105 

„     xii.  27 . 

89 

„     "•  1-5 

104 

Bev.  xix.  12 

17 

,,     viii.  4,  17 

,     106 

„    xxi.  4   . 

122 

Matt.  xii.  18-20 

.      51 

„    xxi.  6   . 

.  127 

„      xxi.  13 

.      94 

„    xxi.  24,  25    . 

.    87 

,,      xxviii.  19 

.       41 

,,    xxii.  2  . 

.     "7 

Luke  xiii.  29 

.      87 

„    xxii.  17 

.     127 

John  iv.  10  . 

.     127 

B.     TOPICS. 

Affliction       .    10,  39,  c 

8,  114 

Missionary  Idea 

Blessedness,  future      12 

0,  130 

23,  33,  42,  89,  loi 

Citizensliip    . 

.      26 

Monopoly     . 

"5 

Commonplace,    redeem 

- 

Parabolic  teaching 

.     106 

ing  the 

3 

Parents,  honouring  of 

.     129 

Ecclesiasticism 

79,  93 

Politics 

.      16 

Election        .         , 

27,  39 

Prayer  book . 

.      69 

Exposition,  its  principle 

s     107 

Sabbath,  the 

.      66 

Faith    .         .          91,  f 

)6,  no 

Sacred  places 

57,85 

Foreigners    . 

•      59 

Sacrifice,  the  true . 

12 

Gentleness    . 

.      49 

Servant,  the  Suffering 

.       44 

Hunger 

.     127 

Songs  of  Zion 

II 

Jerusalem      .          63,  ^ 

H,  132 

Sorrow           .         .        I 

5,  121 

"Law  of  Like"    . 

7 

Spirit,  the  divine  . 

.      47 

Liberty 

.     116 

Youth  . 

,     108 

Literature  and  Lil 

Fe 

21 

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